Cover Reveal

As frequent visitors to my blog will probably know, I love The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. The final instalment of the series is due for release May 27^th, and I am excited to find out how the adventure concludes. I overall like the cover, but it's not really my favourite out of the series. I love how Clary looks, but I'm not too keen on the portrayal of Sebastian. The addition of wings is confusing to me, as although he is a Shadowhunter, anyone who has read the series so far will know that he is anything but angelic. I would like to know the opinions of my fellow Shadowhunters, so please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my followers! Thank you for sticking round and taking the time to read my reviews. I'm hoping to read and review as many books as possible in the coming year, and make more frequent posts. As I got given a ton of books for Christmas, I will be starting with reviewing those, but if you have any suggestions on what I should review please leave them in the comment section below. Also, a reminder to any authors that I am willing to read and review your books. Just leave me an email [address is in the contact details at the top of the page] and give me a brief synopsis of what the book is about and in what format you are able to provide me with a copy. I do have a tablet device which I can read ebooks on, but I am old fashioned when it comes to books so if you can provide me with a physical copy then I will probably be 90% more likely to review it.

Hope you all had a wonderful time over the holidays!

Review on The Infernal Devices #2 Clockwork Prince

The search for the Magister continues, and after a fellow Shadowhunter, Benedict Lightwood insists that Charlotte is not good enough to run the institute, the Clave give her two weeks to find the location of the Magister, or have the institute fall into the hands of Benedict. The Shadowhunters are on a race against time to find the location of The Magister, but all is not as it seems, and they find out that they have a traitor under their very roof. Meanwhile, Will finds out the truth about what really happened during an event in his childhood, while Tessa grows closer to Jem, and finds herself torn between the two boys.

After reading the first book in this series I was hooked, and have to continue to find out what would happen next. In the first book, although I loved both Will and Jem, I always preferred Will, as I always seem to like the characters who seem tortured and act a bit of an ass because of not knowing how to deal with their problems. However, Jem's character has been developed further in Clockwork Prince, and I found myself loving this character just as much, if not more than Will, so I now feel Tessa's pain of not being able to choose between the two. Yes I am that person who falls in love with fictional characters and I regret nothing. Although the love triangle is a big plot point in this book, there was still enough action to stop it from being solely about the romance, and there are a couple of shocks along the way. I will definitely be reading the final installment of this series, as although Clockwork Prince revealed a lot about the characters, there are still some plot points that have yet been unsolved, and I can't wait to find out how this series ends.

Nanowrimo

Hello everyone! I'm just posting a quick update to explain the lack of updates on this blog right now. I have decided to participate in Nanowrimo [National Novel Writing Month] This means that I am attempting to get a novel wrote by the end of this month. The minimum word count is 50'000 words and I've never wrote a piece of fiction this long before so it's very tiring and a lot of work. I'm not getting the time to read right now so I probably won't be posting again until the end of the month. Normal blogging will resume in December.

Good luck to any of my fellow Nanowrimo participants!

Review on 'The Book Thief'

In 1939 Nazi Germany, nine year old Liesel Meminger is forced to live with a foster family. She is at first reluctant, but grows to love her foster parents. However, after finding a book left in the snow, a thirst for knowledge causes Liesel to want more, resulting in her nickname of “The Book Thief.” As the second world war approaches, and a Jewish fist fighter comes into her life, Liesel must decide between loyalty to the Führer , or loyalty to the Jew who now resides in her basement. One thing that Liesel does not bet on is that one day a certain book will save her life.

I don’t even know where to start with this book there’s so much I want to talk about that I could write a whole essay on all the different themes but I will try to keep it as brief as possible. The first thing that I want to point out is that this book is narrated by death. As the stereotypical idea of death is a long, black hooded figure with a scythe, it is interesting that in this book we are actually able to sympathize with death. He has a pretty crappy job having to be the one to take souls away from bodies after a person dies but hey someone has to do it right? But overall Death hates that he has to do this and particularly feels sad about taking away the souls of children. We see that he has his own thoughts and feelings, and can be particularly drawn to the lives of individuals, such as Liesel. Moving on from Death, there are other important themes, a few of them being friendship, bravery, forgiveness, determination and helping those in need, even if it means going against the rules. Like I said I could go into each of these themes in detail but ain’t no one got time to read that. However I must talk about the narrative devices used. I've already mentioned the fact that the novel is narrated by Death. I found it interesting that the reason Death knows Liesel's story is not by creepily stalking her, but by reading the book that she had wrote about her life. I thought this was a great way to personify Death, as reading is a very human thing to do, and the fact that Death made time in his busy schedule to read her story makes Death seem a little less scary. I must also mention the tiny details, such as the text of Mein Kampf bleeding through the painted pages in Max’ stories. I apologize for the long review but I was just amazed by this book and it is one of the best stories I have read this year. I highly recommend it as it is one of those books that has the ability to change your life and your way of perceiving the world. I am now highly looking forward to the movie adaptation and hope that it does the book justice.

Review on 'The Infernal Devices #1 Clockwork Angel'

In the year 1878, 16 year old Tessa Gray moves to London to live with her brother after the death of her aunt. However, things are not as they seem, as instead of her brother, Tessa is greeted by two strange women known only as The Dark Sisters. Tessa soon finds out the truth about these two women, and realizes that her brother has gone missing. With the help of the London Shadowhunters, including best friends Will and Jem, Tessa must uncover the truth about the disappearance of her brother, and what she really is.

As most Young Adult novels that I have read recently have been either contemporary or dystopian, I felt that this novel being set in the past was an interesting and welcoming change. I decided to read this book after enjoying The Mortal Instruments series and loving the Shadowhunter world, and thought this addition was interesting and exciting. I loved the characters, particularly Will and Jem. Although at first I thought that I would prefer Will, as he is seems similar to Jace in The Mortal Instruments, I ended up loving Jem too as he is just the most sweet and adorable thing and I ended up wishing that he wasn’t fictional! There are some heart wrenching moments, particularly the reason why Jem is sick. There is a love triangle in this book between Tessa, Will and Jem, but for this book at least, it did not seem to be the main focus point, and the action outweighed the romance. If you are a fan of The Mortal Instruments, or even if you are just interested in a Young Adult book set in the past then you should give this one a go.