#WWW Wednesday – October 31, 2018

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.

Has October dragged on for everyone else? It’s been three weeks since my last WWW Wednesday post, and the reason I wasn’t posting is because I felt like I hadn’t read anything. Which isn’t true, but I felt like I was in some kind of funk, even as I was getting through things. I’m not sure I’m making any sense whatsoever.

Anyway. Let’s get on with the questions!

What have you recently finished reading?

First of all, I finished my ARC of Unwritten by Tara Gilboy, and while I didn’t love it, I felt it was one that could be enjoyed by MG readers. You can read my review here.

Next I read Two Ways Strong: Jaz’s Story by the Deadly Mob from Concordia, Shallow in the Deep End by Tiwi College Alalinguwi Jarrakarlinga with Jared Thomas and Japarrika by Tiwi College Alalinguwi Jarrakarlinga with David Lawrence & Shelley Ware. These books came in a pack and were put out by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. They were written by Indigenous Australian students with help from mentors and all the proceeds go back to ILF. I wasn’t really sure how to review these so I haven’t written anything yet and I’m not sure that I will.

After that, I finished Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman and reviewed it here. It was tricky to review without spoiling the twist, but it’s definitely a well-written book with lots of social commentary.

Next, I  finished The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor on audio. This was a sweet book and got me quite emotional in the end! I reviewed it here.

Next was Legendary by Stephanie Garber, which was better than Caraval in my very humble opinion. I thought the plot of this one was better developed, and the stakes were higher, but I ended up being a bit disappointed about the reveal of Legend’s identity. It just didn’t seem very epic after all the build-up. 

Last but not least was Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckermann, which was a very short verse novel and… I had a lot of mixed feelings about it which I will try to explore in my review. 

I also posted my review of Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel for those who are interested.

What are you currently reading? 

What are you reading this week? 🙂

I’ve just started Sugar Spells by Lola Dodge today. This is the second book in the Spellwork Syndicate series (I reviewed the first one here). I’m only about 10% in at time of writing this post but I am remembering what came before and already into the story, so that’s a good sign. Also I love the descriptions of baking witchcraft. And the covers are so stunning, I love them! 

What do you think you’ll read next?      

Circus Hearts: All Aces by Ellie Marney comes out tomorrow so I assume she’ll be sending ARCs to her review team very soon. I’m looking forward to seeing how this series winds up. Say what you want about self-publishing but getting the installments in a trilogy only a month apart from each other been awesome. 😀 

What are you reading this week? 🙂

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Book Review: “Unwritten” by Tara Gilboy

Title: Unwritten
Author: Tara Gilboy
Genre: Fantasy
Target age group: Middle-grade
Dates read: 02/10/18 – 10/10/18
Rating: ★★★

Review:

I think a lot of my issues with this book can be blamed on the fact that I probably don’t enjoy MG fiction  quite as much as I thought I did. I kind of had this idea that I love MG and YA equally, but between this and the last MG book I read, I think I have to re-evaluate that.

None of that is this book’s fault.

Unwritten follows Gracie, a character in an unpublished fantasy story whose family have taken her out into our world to protect her from death at the end of the story. But when a meeting with the story’s author results in the author being pulled into the story world, Gracie and her family and friends have to go back into their world and try to change the story for the better.

I think my main issue was that I never really felt pulled into the story. I always felt a little bit detached. And I am fairly certain that is to do with the issue mentioned prevously. I think that I were ten years old, I would love this story.

It does have a lot to love. I especially liked the way concept of the story pulling on its characters and how Gracie could never be sure if she was doing something because she wanted to or whether the story was pushing her to do it.

There was a good twist that I didn’t see coming, but it seemed so obvious in hindsight (also, I just hardly ever see twists coming).

The theme of forging your own destiny and not letting yourself be misguided did sometimes seem a bit heavy-handed, but I wasn’t sure if that was just me being overly critical. Maybe it wouldn’t seem so obvious to a MG reader? See what I mean about me and books for this age-group having issues at the moment?

Tl;dr, I think this book was a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” and probably your MG reader wil love it. It is defintely an interesting story that I haven’t seen before.

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(Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a free copy of  this book in exchange for a review)

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#WWW Wednesday – October 10, 2018

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 All Fall Down, the second in Ellie Marney’s Circus Hearts series. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first one, but I still gave it four stars. I did really like the love interest. He just really had it together. He was attractive and smart and had a good job and everything. I guess this is the nice thing about reading about 19 to 22-year-olds rather than 16-year-olds.

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel picked up enough in the last third that I gave it three stars rather than two, but I was still annoyed that a lot of it was quite lecturey. I am all for political books, but I prefer the politics to be woven into the story, rather than characters just having rants about the state of the world today.

After that, I read an ARC of Claw the System: Poems from the Cat Uprising by Francesco Marciuliano. I didn’t find this as funny as I had hoped, but there were still some laugh-out-loud moments and some very entertaining photos of cats throughout.

Click the titles to read my reviews of Caraval by Stephanie Garber, My Whole Truth by Mischa Thrace, All Fall Down by Ellie Marney and Claw the System by Francesco Marciuliano.

What are you currently reading? 

What are you reading this week? 🙂

I expect to finish my ARC of Unwritten by Tara Gilboy in the next couple of days. This wasn’t quite what I expected and to my adult reader brain, seems a bit heavy-handed in its message, but it would probably not be quite so to an actual MG-age reader. 

On audio, I am listening to The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor.  I have a really good feeling about this one. Eleven years ago, I based my Year 12 individual drama performance on the story of the Cottingley fairies, and I’ve had an interest in them ever since. And I think this book takes the “the photos might be fake but the fairies might still be real” angle, which is how I feel about it, too. 

I’m also about 100 pages into Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman, but I’ve put it on hold a little until I get through some more ARCs. 

What do you think you’ll read next?

I have an ARC of The Confectioner’s Guild by Claire Luana. I have a thing for baking witchcraft in urban fantasy. Possibly it’s the covers that are good enough to eat combined with drool-worthy descriptions. Also this one also has murder, which is always enjoyable in fiction form. 

What are you reading this week? 🙂