The Novelle: tbr

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Spring Clean Your TBR: April in Review

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Review: Here's Looking At You

Author: Mhairi McFarlane

Source: Amazon Kindle

Published: 2013

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Our heroine Aureliana returns to school after fifteen years for a reunion. School doesn't hold happy memories for her, as being a roly poly Italian (known as the Italian Galleon), she was bullied incessantly throughout her years there. Now in her 30s, Aureliana wants to put the past behind her once and for all and face up to the bullies who made her life hell. But she is much-changed from the girl she once was - all curves and because I'm worth it hair - and no one recognises her when she arrives. Losing her bottle, she backs out on her plan for revenge and slinks off, hoping never to be reminded of her years at school again. But fate gets in the way, and after the reunion her path keeps crossing with James - major hunk and Aureliana's major crush back at school. But alas, as a cronie to the bullies, Aureliana to this day believes that his beautiful exterior hides an ugly interior. As they continue to cross paths a love/hate relationship ensues until eventually something shifts, and they both start to discover what the person underneath is really like.

I read Mhairi McFarlane's first book 'You Had Me At Hello' last year (I believe) and absolutely adored it, so as soon as I saw that her second companion novel was being released on kindle, and for very cheap, I had to grab it as soon as possible - even though it's taken me a little while to getting around to reading it.

The story is told from Aureliana (Anna) Alessi and James Fraser's perspective, and is ever so casual in the writing style that it just draws you in immediately. The use of popular culture references and slang definitely help with this and make you relate to the story. The plot itself was absolutely lovely to read, but it was extremely predictable; it was a stereotype in itself in an ugly-duckling-becomes-a-swan sort of way. It wasn't quite as predictable as some movies with the best-friend-takes-off-their-glasses-pulls-down-their-hair-and-suddenly-they-are-beautiful, as it was a lot more hard work than that, but it was teetering on the edge.

Anna wasn't a character I particularly liked to be honest. She was insecure about her looks, yes, because of her past, but there comes a point when it just becomes tedious when someone is so modest and doesn't appreciate themselves all the time. In a way, it almost becomes an attention play (which I don't think was intentional) and starts to be quite annoying. The way she was just so oblivious and naive to any kind of sign or fact that she might be attractive started to get on my nerves as the book went on. James' character on the other hand was absolutely fantastic and I grew to like him more and more as his character developed throughout the book; he learned from his mistakes.

I absolutely LOVED the banter between the characters, it was just me all over. The witty sarcastic comments were just wonderful and I found myself laughing out loud on many an occasion - and for someone that doesn't really react to books that's a pretty mean feat. Even in the first book I found the dialogue to be second to none and it definitely didn't disappoint in this book.

Here's Looking At You was a lovely story but was just a tad too predictable for my likings. However, I'm still keen to read more by Mhairi McFarlane as she has wonderful writing skills and I want to see what else she can come up with.

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Spring Clean Your TBR: Week 4

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Spring Clean Your TBR: Week 3

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Review: Inside Out

Author: Maria V. Snyder

Source: Amazon Kindle

Published: 2010

Rating: ★★

I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

From the off with this book I was instantly reminded of Wool by Hugh Howie; an amazing book about a population living in a silo. The similarity in plot lines may have tinted some of my preconceptions about the book but my general opinion not so much.

To cut a long story short, it was pretty much everything I don't like in a YA book - the main characters were annoyingly self righteous, there was an unwanted predictable romance, and talking about predictable, the whole story was obvious from start to finish with no plot twists (apart from one) that really surprised me.

As you joined Trella on her journey through the pipes of the Inside, the writing was fast paced and actioned packed enough that you got sucked into her world and felt the same things that she was feeling. Panic, confusion and lonlieness to name but a few. However, there was just something missing.

The whole book was a bit too one dimentional and lacked any real bite to take it to the next level. The characters were simple, the plot was simple and I felt as though there was so much that could have been done with this book that just wasn't.

The only thing that piqued my interest (and I can't even tell you, for spoilers) was the search for Gateway - the door to the Outside. Throughout the book the characters had many theories about Gateway and it's real or not real existance in Inside. That leading question was what propelled me through this book as I wanted to find out the answers as well. The ending however, I found to be a bit abrupt - I got confused as to what was happening and had to reread a few paragraphs a few times before I still didn't get what was going on - yes, that sentence sounds weird but I still don't know what actually happened.

Maybe this book would have appealed to me more had I been a bit younger, but it just didn't tick the boxes for me I'm afraid.

18:00

Spring Clean Your TBR: Week 2

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Spring Clean Your TBR: Week 1

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Spring Clean Your TBR

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Top Ten Tuesday: Spring TBR

I don't generally like to TBR as I tend to pick up books depending on how I'm feeling at that moment in time; I don't like to put too much pressure on myself to read as I've done that before and it just hasn't been pretty. Therefore, I'm just going to post the top books that I want to read as soon:

Harry Potter - JK Rowling

I've got a confession to make - this may make the world turn upside down and cause riots - but I haven't read the last book in the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (awaits judgement). I decided it was time to reread the whole of the Harry Potter series in sequence in order to get myself up to date and to finally finish the series, and due to the fact that I'm currently travelling around Australia it would be extremely impractical to be carrying around seven massively huge and heavy books. Therefore, I have decided to try out the Amazon Kindle Unlimited service (which I will probably review at some point in the future) as all the Harry Potter books are available to read on that - I have recently finished The Prisoner of Azkaban and am thoroughly enjoying the journey back into the wizarding world of Hogwarts.

The Mortal Instruments (5 + 6) - Cassandra Clare

I just have the last two books in the Mortal Instruments series to finish; City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire. As with the Harry Potter books, I am getting these on the Amazon Kindle Unlimited service as well, as the whole series is available for reading there. I haven't enjoyed The Mortal Instruments series as much as I did The Infernal Devices (which may be the first reread I willingly do) as it isn't as intriguing and has way too many plot twists that it's starting to become stupidly confusing. I will admit that they are fast paced action packed reads, which on the surface layer of the book are incredible, but once you get into actually processing what's happened, it's a little bit ridiculous. However, I will be continuing with this series till the very end and I will see what I think when I get there.

The Year Of The Flood - Margaret Atwood

This is a book that I put on my back burner list last year and have never come back to finish reading it. It wasn't a bad book, in fact quite the contrary, but I just wasn't feeling the read at the time, as sometimes happens. I love the post apocalyptic dystopian feel of Oryx and Crake, the prequel to this book, and look forward to carrying on with this read.

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Do I need to write anything other than both the authors names as a reason to read this book; I love both of their work individually and am really excited to delve into a world created by their heads combined. Along with this book, I am trying to make my way through Terry Pratchett's Discworld series; which will be a feat in itself. Pratchett is one of my favourite authors and I am more than willing to try anything that has been writen by the master himself.

A Storm of Swords - George R. R. Martin

I am slowly making my way through the Song of Ice and Fire series, and sadly I am only on the third book. The first book was amazing, the second was a slog of story and character building that wasn't pretty to read; from what I've been told, that's normal, and the rest of the books get better as you go through them so I am thoroughly excited to get cracking with this series. It may take me till I am 50 but I will finish these even if it kills me.

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish; let us know your top Spring reads