Monthly Wrap-Up | June 2015

It's time to wrap-up another month - where is 2015 going? We got some lovely weather here in the UK throughout June, so I've been enjoying the sunshine.

Somehow I managed to read twelve books this month, which I definitely wasn't expecting - in fact I even ended up completing my Goodreads challenge of reading 40 books! I can't wait to see how much more I can read this year.

There were some graphic novels, a dash of nonfiction, a couple of modern classics and a childhood favourite amongst my reads this year. A good month!

Lolly Willowes

by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Reviewed here!

How To Be a Heroine

by Samantha Ellis

Reviewed here!

Stargirl

by Jerry Spinelli

Reviewed here!

Jane, the Fox & Me

by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault

Reviewed here!

The Magic Finger 

by Roald Dahl

(re-read)

The Night Bookmobile

by Audrey Niffenegger

Lumberjanes, Vol.1

by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

Reviewed here!

Medieval Monsters

by Damien Kempf and Maria L. Gilbert

American Vampire, Vol.4

by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Jordi Bernett

Reviewed here!

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Ms. Marvel, Vol.3: Crushed

by G. Willow Wilson, Elmo Bondoc and Takeshi Miyazawa

Darkhaven

by A.F.E. Smith

I discovered a new favourite show in June: Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

I know, I know, it started back in 2o13, but I only just got around to watching it in June, and I couldn't stop. I marathoned the first season and loved it. I usually struggle with comedies; I know it makes me sound really miserable, but I get bored of laughing. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but I hate those shows with canned laughter (apart from Friends, which I will always love) that just continually make fart jokes and boob jokes, but Brooklyn Nine-Nine was so much fun. I laughed out loud more than once, and I can't wait to immerse myself in season two!

I also continued to watch Penny Dreadful, and season 2 is almost over! I loved Angelique so much, and I continue to adore Ethan Chandler who is just adorable.

And Hannibal returned in June! And then revealed season 3 would be its last because NBC have decided not to renew it...

Why is it always the best shows that get cancelled? Hannibal is such a fantastic show - how can it not be with Bryan Fuller at the helm and that fantastic cast? - and us Fannibals are all hoping that Netflix will pick the series up. I don't want this series to end! But, if it must, I trust that Bryan Fuller has created a brilliant finale. #SaveHannibal

How Do You See Cinder?

Should Our Books have Trigger Warnings?

From Screen to Page #1

Don't Judge a Book by its Author

As much as June has felt like another month that's gone by quickly, I also feel like I've packed a lot more into June!

In the middle of the month I ended up returning to Lancaster, where I went to uni, for the night because the publisher I work for published a short story collection written by one of the Creative Writing professors there. I helped to organise the book launch because I have contacts up at Litfest, so I travelled up there with Penny, our fiction editor, and then went out to dinner with two of my friends from uni who are still in the area. We had a lovely dinner at Bella Italia, and I completely forgot to take any photos because I'm rubbish, but it was so nice to be back in the city I love, even just for a night.

One of my friends was lovely enough to offer me a room for the night, and then I got back on the train down to south Wales the next morning. I also received some pretty cool news while I was up there; it turns out the portfolio I worked on for my MA last year is up on the uni's website for the current MA students to look at because it was one of the best from last year - I was so surprised!

I strayed into England twice in June; first to Lancaster, and then to Glastonbury. I moved around quite a bit while I was in primary school, and for a few years I lived very near Glastonbury in a little village in Somerset. I love Glastonbury; it's a fun, kooky little place that also claims to be the place where King Arthur is buried, in fact people still journey there every year to leave flowers for him at Glastonbury Abbey!

He and Guinevere have been missing since the dissolution of the monasteries (we have good ol' Henry VIII to thank for that) though it's doubtful that he was ever really there at all, as the monks happened to discover him at a time when the Abbey was in need of money. Still, it's nice to believe in things like this, isn't it? And he certainly means a lot to people; while we were there someone left him a rose.

If you ever have the chance to visit Glastonbury then I recommend going, especially if you've never been! It's a beautiful part of the world and Glastonbury Abbey is well worth a visit if you're a fan of history - in fact it's worth a visit even if you aren't! There are lots of fun little shops in Glastonbury, too, selling jewellery and incense and all sorts, and if you'd rather do something more outdoorsy you can always visit the Tor!

My mum explores Glastonbury Abbey...

These tiles are 800 years old!

I'm going to be doing some more exploring in July, a little further afield, as my friend Elena and I are off to Rome!

Becky Albertalli wrote a guest post @ Pop! Goes the Reader for Ladies in Literature month all about Body Positivity in Literature

Kat @ Murder of Goths wrote a guest post @ She Might Be Loved about Taking Up Space

Tonyalee @ Lilybloombooks wrote a great post all about Fitting In in the blogging world

Micheline @ Lunar Rainbows announced Harry Potter Month!

Cristina @ Girl in the Pages discussed Parents in YA Literature

Georgina @ She Might Be Loved talked about her Blogging Journey

How was your June?

Reading Wrap-Up | June 2014

I gave myself an incredibly ambitious TBR at the start of this month and then, naturally, fell into a huge reading slump that I only managed to climb out of in the last week of the month. Even so, I managed to read three books and a short story this month so it could have been worse - I could have read nothing at all!

Old Wives' Lore: A Book of Old-Fashioned Tips & Remedies

by Polly Bloom

My Rating: 

A treasure trove of age-old customs and time honoured advice, as well as eccentric old wives' tales, this book includes:

A brief history of old wives' lore
-----
Remedies for health and well being
-----
Practical guidance for home and garden
-----
Tips on predicting the weather
-----
Superstitions and hokum

I found this little book in The Works for a very cheap price, and it's probably not the kind of book you'd expect you'd expect to see mentioned on a book blog, but as some of you know I'm currently working on a historical fiction novel and my protagonist is a healer. I decided to pick this book up to see if it would come in handy and it did actually provide me with a few tidbits I can use in my writing, as well as teaching me how haemorrhoids played a part in the Battle of Waterloo!

Carswell's Guide to Being Lucky

by Marissa Meyer

My Rating: 

Next I read another of Marissa Meyer's short stories set in the world of The Lunar Chronicles. This little story follows Carswell Thorne as a little boy and shows us what really happened regarding the incident with Kate Fallow. It was such an adorable little read, and it was great fun to be back in this world!

Malkin Child

by Livi Michael

My Rating: 

Wouldn't you like to save your family, Jennet?

Jennet's family all believe they are witches. Other folk think they are, too. But 1612 is a dangerous time to be a witch. When her family are imprisoned and put on trial in Lancaster Castle, Jennet's evidence will help decide their fate.

Next up was some middle grade historical fiction, and it's been so long since I read any middle grade that this was a lot of fun to read. I had the pleasure of meeting Livi Michael a couple of months ago at the Children's Literature Festival in Lancaster, which was where I bought my copy of Malkin Child (which she very kindly signed for me) and went to an event where she talked about writing the book and read out some extracts.

This is a very touching story based on the Pendle Witch trials of 1612. I definitely recommend checking it out!

Witch Hill

by Marcus Sedgwick

My Rating: 

At first, Jamie isn't too worried about the bad dreams he's been having since coming to his aunt's house. Most people awoken in the middle of the night to find their house burning down would probably have nightmares, too. But instead of fire, he keeps dreaming of a "horrible, scary old woman," relentlessly coming after him for some awful, inexplicable purpose. Even though he's come to Aunt Jane's to recover from the fire's aftermath, he doesn't want to bother her or his cousin Alison with his silly fears. He can see that they are very busy with their village's community service project--cleaning off an age-old carving on the side of hill that overlooks the town. But when the carving turns out to be a peculiar primordial figure instead of the "crown" that the people of Crownshill expected to see, and Jamie uncovers evidence of an ancient witchcraft trial in local history papers, he is swept into a centuries-old mystery to which he unwittingly has the key. Who is the old crone chasing him, and what does she want? Jamie will have to endure an experience worse than fire to find out.

After Malkin Child I jumped into another middle grade book, and my first Marcus Sedgwick book. This was a fun, spooky little novella which, like Malkin Child, I read in the space of about an hour. I didn't enjoy this read quite as much; oddly enough, even though Malkin Child is based off real events, I actually found Witch Hill more predictable and a little boring. I'd still recommend it to any younger readers, though!

What did you read this month?

J.

Reading Wrap-Up | June 2013

Unfortunately June was a really bad reading month for me, in fact it was even worse than May. I managed to get through five books in May, but in June I only managed three. I've been in such a slump lately, I've started plenty of books but I've been really struggling to get into any of them. I'd like to say that July will be better, but I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo so there's a chance I'm going to be doing more writing than reading, hopefully that way I'll be out of my slump come August.
     Oh well, on with the wrap-up!

My Rating: 

Lena's been to the very edge. She's questioned love and the life-changing and agonising choices that come with it.

She's made her decision. But can she survive the consequences?

The first book I finished in June was the second installment in Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy, Pandemonium.

     I finished Delirium, the first book in the trilogy, back in February and I adored it. Since finishing The Hunger Games trilogy it was the best YA dystopian novel I had read; the narrative voice was gorgeous, the protagonist was relatable and the world-building was magnificent. The ending, though terribly bittersweet, was stunning, so I was rather hesitant to read Pandemonium as I was worried it was never going to be quite as good. Unfortunately, I was right.

     There were definitely elements of Pandemonium that I enjoyed, particularly the chapters which explored Lena's life in the Wilds after her escape, but I felt as though this book focused too much on introducing another love interest and subsequent love triangle rather than on the relationship between Lena and her mother I had hoped it would tackle.

     Ultimately it was an enjoyable enough read, and a fairly decent sequel, but it was nowhere near as good as the first book. If you'd like to see some more of my thoughts on this particular book I have written a review of it which you can find here.

My Rating: 

Battling against a society in which love has been declared a disease, Lena now finds herself at the centre of a fierce revolution. But the Wilds are no longer the haven they once were as the government seeks to stamp out the rebels. And Lena's emotions are in turmoil following the dramatic return of someone she thought was lost forever...

After Pandemonium I was determined to read Requiem, the third book in the trilogy, and finally finish one of the many trilogies waiting to be read on my shelves.

     The good thing about Requiem is that it made Pandemonium seem even better, the bad thing was that it did so by being such an unbelievably disappointing conclusion to what could have been an amazing trilogy. The ending, as far as I'm concerned, was not an ending, it could have benefitted immensely with just the simple addition of an epilogue because, ultimately, we really don't know what happens to any of these characters we have grown to love. We don't know if they succeed in overthrowing the government or if they are caught, tried and executed. Even if it wasn't a happy ending I still would have liked an ending. I don't like it when authors ask me to imagine my own; I expect the author to know what happens to their own characters.

     The book wasn't all bad, of course. Personally I really enjoyed the chapters which followed Hana, Lena's old best friend who has since been cured, while she struggled with feelings she shouldn't still be feeling and awaited her marriage to a man who proved to be abusive. It was interesting to see the world from the point of view of a person who has been cured, but I was again disappointed in that we never really know what happens to Hana either.

     All in all this was a very disappoining read, and possibly one of the worst conclusions to a trilogy/series I have ever read. If you have yet to read the Delirium trilogy then please take my advice: read the first book and only the first book. Even though the ending is sad there is a finality to it that the latter two books lack, and it is by far the best book in the trilogy.

My Rating: 

It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

After the disappointment that was the ending of the Delirium trilogy I was in the mood to read something a little more angry. Something post-apocalyptic seemed perfect and, after plenty of recommendations from all over the place, I picked up a copy of Susan Ee's Angelfall. I read it in two days because it was such a fast-paced read, and I certainly enjoyed it a lot more than the other two books I read in June.

     I haven't read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, it's a genre that I'm just starting to get into, and I've also never read anything with angels in it, so this book really was quite a new reading adventure for me. I'm not entirely sure why I generally stay away from books involving angels or fallen angels, they're just not mythological/fantastical/theological creatures that I have much interest in. I liked Ee's representation of the angels, however; I was a little worried they were somehow going to be rather preachy and 'better than thou' but they were actually rather brutal themselves, which makes perfect sense given some of the passages in the Bible.

     Penryn was a pretty cool protagonist to follow - I really love her name - and her relationship with Raffe was a lot of fun, too, though there were times when I felt as though the obvious romance that was blossoming between the two of them was blossoming a little too fast. The only thing I was really unsure of was the ending. Why were there weird scorpion people? It seemed as though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the angels other than to make them seem creepy.

     Other than that I did enjoy it and I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series.

Since finishing Angelfall I've been stuck in a reading rut. I'm currently reading about six books, I just haven't really gotten into one and that's sad; I'm really in the mood to get into a new book, so I'll just have to keep persevering. Part of me can't help but think that the conclusion to the Delirium trilogy really got me into the rut; the majority of the books on my shelves are part of a series, because there's a real lack of good standalone books in the genres I enjoy recently, and after reading such a disappointing ending I'm nervous of becoming invested in something else only to be let down. I had intended to read Moira Young's Rebel Heart, the second installment in the Dustlands trilogy, this month but I just couldn't get into it after Requiem. Hopefully I'll get through it this month instead.

     That's it for this month, check back in at the end of July for another monthly wrap-up and keep reading throughout the month; I'm probably going to write a few Camp NaNoWriMo updates and possibly a few personal posts as well as hopefully posting some more reviews very soon.

     Until then, thanks for reading! J.