#Blogmas2016 | November Round Up - Books I read in November 2016
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
After the 18 books, I read in October I couldn’t even contemplate
trying to match it. I decided to stick to a theme. I guess you could say there
are two themes here. 1. They are all Zoella Book Club books and 2. They are all
YA books.
I am very much enjoying reading YA books now. I do have some
issues with them but I think back to the books my thirteen-year-old-self read
and these are much deeper and darker. Books I read as a teen were very tame and
fluffy, I read a lot of Point Romance. I tried some Point Horror but I’m a scardy
cat, I read a lot of Sweet Valley High and another series I can’t recall the
name of. It was a brother and a sister. I think the brother was blind (maybe
called Ben) and she wrote a diary and those pages were in a handwriting font.
Which was something new and innovative in the books world back in the 90s.
November I read three book which I think is good going as usually
after a heavy reading month I don’t read anything at all.
I’m not good at spoiler free reviews so please feel free to leave
here if you’re planning on reading any of these books.
The
sky is everywhere – Jandy Nelson
The sky is everywhere is about the journey through grief, broken
families, first love, family secrets and over all I did enjoy it. There were
some elements that didn’t sit right and I find this with some of the American
YA Books that maybe teen years are very different to UK teen years.
There were some elements that would make a good Wes Anderson
movie. There is a quirky uncle until I learned of his moustache and then he
became more interesting. He likes to marry and has a temple where he places
bugs with the hope they will be resurrected. There are some elements of slight
magical family but not in a Harry Potter / The Craft kind of magic. More like
spells and hope but this isn’t really explained or explored too much but I did notice
this in a few points.
The premises is, a family crippled by grief after 18-year-old Baily
is killed. The story centres Lennie the sister and it starts with her dealing
with grief and going back to school. There is also a new boy in town who she
starts dating and it deal with teen love and relationships.
How the uncle and Gran must
cope. The book is unusual as there is handwriting font throughout the book where
Lennie has written poems scraps of paper and scatters them around.
The book is a good read and I would recommend reading it but it’s
not one I’m shouting about to anyone who will listen.
A
Monster Calls – Patrick Ness
I adore this book, go and read it… shall I leave it at that? I’ve
written a standalone review of this which you might like to read.
In brief this is another book that deals with tough times within a
broken family. Conor is 13 years old a carer to his mum who has cancer and a
monster visits him and want to tell him 3 stories with Conor having to tell
his own true story at the end. The book was beautifully written and I would
highly recommend reading.
All
the bright places – Jennifer Niven
Violet and Finch are two very different teenagers who have a
common bond. They were both considering jumping from the school bell tower.
Violet is one of the cool kids and Finch is “weird”. He talks her
down and she gets credited with saving his life. Violet gets a free pass in
most of her classes for special circumstances as she’s lost her elder sister in
a car crash. In the only class, Finch and Violet have together they are set to
work together on a project to explore the state they live in. The teacher has
decided she isn’t getting a free pass on this one.
The book follows their journeys to get to know each other and goes
into Finches past to explain some of the reasons he is why he is. As the book
goes on Finch tries to help Violet overcome some of the things she is too
traumatised to do after surviving the crash that killed he sister. He gets her
back in a car again and as the book progresses you get an insight into both of
their lives.
It’s a difficult subject and does cover some things that were hard
to read but there are also some sweet moments and I enjoyed the book.
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