Top Ten Tuesday | My Autumn TBR(s)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is all about books on our Autumn TBR. I love the autumn; it's the beginning of my favourite quarter of the year, all the way up to the New Year, and today I have twenty books to share with you, split into four little TBRs. I have a general autumn TBR, which has accidentally ended up entirely being historical fiction set in the 19th century, a Halloween TBR, a Black History Month TBR and a Sci-Fi Month TBR!

In other words, this is a big pile of books I'd like to try and get through in the next couple of months! I like to try and read spooky books on the run up to Halloween, but October is also Black History Month here in the UK so I'd like to read some of the black authors on my shelves because frankly the amount of black writers I have read is abysmal. Then in November it's the return of Rinn @ Rinn Reads' Sci-Fi Month, so I have some science fiction I'd like to try and cross off my TBR, too!

I'm usually not good with TBRs, but I'm going to be as casual as I like with this one. If I only read one book from each list that'll be fine by me.

Apologies for this humungous post today, but I'd also like to take a quick moment to say a huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I really appreciate all the lovely things you said and I feel like I'm ready to ease back into blogging!

Now on with the TBR!

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet: This historical novel is on this year's Man Booker shortlist and is recommended to fans of Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, which just so happens to be a novel I adore. I love reading darker stories when the autumn comes around and the story of a murder certainly sounds dark.

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho: I was supposed to read this with the lovely Mikayla @ Mikayla's Bookshelf back in February but I failed miserably. I really want to cross this book off my TBR, though!

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue: I've yet to read any Emma Donoghue despite owning  a copy of The Sealed Letter but I think her most recent novel sounds fascinating, and as it's a historical novel set in 19th century Ireland I'm hoping it'll satisfy me until the publication of Hannah Kent's The Good People in February.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry: I've started this one already and enjoyed what I read so far, but I put it on hold because I think its atmosphere will make for a perfect autumn read!

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman: This was a Christmas present from my friend Natalie @ A Sea Change who I know loves this series, so it's about time I got around to reading it.

Things Half in Shadow by Alan Finn: I love stories involving spiritualism, especially the spiritualism that became so popular during the 19th century, and I've owned this book for a while now. I meant to read it last Halloween and didn't get to it, so I'm hoping I can cross it off my TBR this year!

The Lifted Veil by George Eliot: Yet more Victorian spiritualism, this time written during the Victorian era by one of my favourite authors of the time. I've got a soft spot for George Eliot because it was reading Silas Marner when I was eighteen that made me realise my love for Victorian Literature. I'd never actually heard of this little novella until I stumbled upon it in an independent bookshop in Cornwall and I think it'll be something fun to read one spooky evening.

The Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill: The lovely Mikayla @ Mikayla's Bookshelf was kind enough to send me this last Christmas when she discovered my love for Victorian era ghost stories. I've been saving it for Halloween and I can't wait to get to it!

The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins: I actually own a copy of The Haunted Hotel on my kindle, which I picked up for free, but I couldn't resist this cool, Alfred Hitchcockian looking edition which I found in this independent bookshop in Wales. Wilkie Collins is another of my favourite classic authors (I adore The Moonstone which is thought to be the very first detective novel) so it's about time I pick up something else for his and, compared to some of his other work, this is a little shorter.

The Vanishing Witch by Karen Maitland: I have yet to read any Karen Maitland which is particularly bad for someone like me who loves historical fiction. So many of her books sound wonderful but there's something about The Vanishing Witch that particularly calls to me at this time of year, even if it is one of her chunkier books!

Mr. Fox and White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi: I also own Oyeyemi's latest book, her collection What is Not Yours is Not Yours, but I'd really like to try one of her novels first and both of these sound fantastic, plus White is for Witching sounds like an ideal Halloween read, too!

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I'm glad I've at least read a little Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie before with We Should All Be Feminists, but I desperately need to check out her novels and I've heard nothing but fantastic things about this one.

The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah: After reading Emily Urquhart's Beyond the Pale last year I've been wanting to read a novel with a person with albinism as the protagonist. I'm fascinated by stories told by characters in prison but all the ones I've read so far have been set in Europe so it'd be interesting to read a story set in Zimbabwe instead.

Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay: Jackie Kay is the current National Poet of Scotland and I've heard nothing but wonderful things about this, her memoir, which tells the story of her search for her birth parents.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: I think I'm the only person left who hasn't read this book, and as I've yet to hear a bad review I really want to get to it this November!

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: Yet another sci-fi book I've heard nothing but wonderful things about and still haven't read. This is one of my closest friend's favourite books so I'd like to check it out soon.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is one of my favourite novels of all time so I can't wait to get my copy of this!

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler: Octavia Butler is pretty famous for her science fiction, particularly Kindred, but I've heard some amazing things about Dawn that really make me want to read it this November.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor: Nnedi Okorafor is another author whose work I keep meaning to read, and considering this little novella won a Hugo and a Nebula Award this year I think it's time I read it!

Which books made your list this week?

Review | The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

My Rating: 

When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.

But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptillian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful - exactly what Rosemary wants.

Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They'll earn enough money to live comfortably for years... if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.

But Rosemary isn't the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

I received an eARC of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's no secret that this book has been all over the book blogging community this year. I thought it sounded cool when I came across it on NetGalley, but it was only after I started seeing all these brilliant reviews that I knew I needed to read it. Soon enough Natalie @ A Sea Change was recommending it to me, so I had to read it.

This is my kind of sci-fi. I closed this book feeling bereft, elated and hopeful all at once. This book is not only one of my favourite books of this year, but one of my favourite books period. It broke my heart and made me laugh, sometimes in the same scene, and I loved it.

At first glance this story seems fairly simple. Rosemary Harper, a character with a secretive past, joins the eclectic crew of the Wayfarer as the captain's new clerk. The Wayfarer's crew make their money punching holes in space, making shortcuts throughout the galaxy - kind of like intergalactic road works. They get by, but they're not exactly rich, so when they're offered the extremely well-paid job of creating a new tunnel near a planet which is the home of rather hostile occupants, they take it.

Sounds simple enough, right? But this book is so much more than that.

The blurb might make it sound as though Rosemary is the main character, but this book very much has an ensemble cast of characters - it reminded me of Firefly, and if you like that show you'll love this book. Each character is exquisitely drawn, as is the galaxy, and all the species in it, that Chambers has created. Her detail is so rich and yet it's never boring or too much; it's so vivid I felt like I could live in it. In fact I'm a little sad I don't, because never before have I read sci-fi that's so hopeful and life-affirming.

This story is kind of a story that takes place between the action, if that makes sense. A lot happens on this ship, and aside from the various stopping points on their long journey when they need to stock up on supplies or visit families, the ship is the setting for the entire novel. By having all these different characters in this small, enclosed space, Chambers explores ideas of culture, gender, sexuality, relationships, family structures and what it means to be a person. It's just fantastic. It's so hard to write a review for a book I loved so much I can't put it into words.

Please read this. It'll break your heart and blow you away. A truly stunning debut.

Monthly Wrap-Up | November 2015

November was a fairly mixed month for me. I can't believe it's December already!

Bitch Planet, Vol.1: Extraordinary Machine

by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro

Demon Road

by Derek Landy

Winter

by Marissa Meyer

A Guinea Pig Pride & Prejudice

by Jane Austen and Alex Goodwin

Sky Goddesses of Dryden, Vols. I-IV

by Laura Konrad and Danielle Evert

Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale

by Catherine Orenstein

Copperhead, Vol.2

by Jay Faerber, Scott Godlewski and Ron Riley

Disturbance
by Ivy Alvarez

The Falconer
by Elizabeth May

The Grownup
by Gillian Fynn

The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is still a Boys' Club
by Eileen Pollack

I read ten books in October, and somehow I managed to read eleven in November. Don't ask me how! The Lunar Chronicles finally came to an end with the arrival of my most anticipated release of this year, Winter, and I ended up reading a lot of good books this month - there were no books I didn't like, which is always nice!

My sister, brother-in-law and I went to see Mockingjay Part 2 together in November, and I enjoyed it! I really like what Francis Lawrence has done with the series, and given how sceptical I was about Mockingjay being divided into two I actually think it was done really well and the cast were superb. As with all adaptations there were parts of it that I didn't like as much as others, but as a whole I think it was a very good adaptation!

I was pleasantly surprised by a new period drama in November. Whenever I see the word 'Frankenstein' in the title of a drama I'm immediately wary - there has never been a decent adaptation of Frankenstein - but The Frankenstein Chronicles isn't an adaptation of the book, in fact one of the characters is Mary Shelley, played by the wonderful Anna Maxwell Martin.

The Frankenstein Chronicles is set around nine years after the publication of Frankenstein, and children, sewn together from various body parts, are being found dumped around London. At a time when science and religion are constantly butting heads, it's up to John Marlott, played by Sean Bean, to find out who's committing these monstrosities before all of London discovers what's happening.

If you're in the UK it's on ITV Encore on Wednesday nights t 9pm, and Thursday nights at 10pm. Those of you outside the UK, I have no idea if the drama's already out there or if it's going to be, but if you have the chance to watch it then do - it's surprisingly good!

Winter

by Marissa Meyer

Demon Road

by Derek Landy

The Falconer

by Elizabeth May

The Grownup

by Gillian Flynn

The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is still a Boys' Club

by Eileen Pollack

Sci-Fi Month | Is Alien Gothic?

Book vs. Adaptation | Carrie by Stephen King

Sci-Fi Month | Do the Undead Breathe New Life into our Classics?

Film Recommendations for Austen Fans

Adult Fiction for YA Readers

November has been a month of highs and lows for me. Earlier in the month my sister and I went to see Imagine Dragons in Cardiff, and they were amazing. I bought tickets for us for my sister's birthday, so we'd been waiting to go and see them since February.

They were so good live and they put on an excellent show - I definitely want to see them again in future, and I'm glad my sister liked her birthday present. It was nice to spend an evening with her; she's ten years older than me, so she's married and has two daughters of her own, so I don't get her all to myself that often.

Throughout November I took part in Rinn @ Rinn Reads' Sci-Fi Month. I didn't read as much as I hoped I would, but I wrote a couple of blog posts I really enjoyed writing and I managed to get a couple of reviews up. I even took a picture of my Lunar Chronicles books on Instagram, and it ended up getting used in an article on Bustle!

November was also my last month at work as my contract came to an end. I was hired as an Administration and Marketing Assistant at the independent publishers, Seren Books, for a year to help organise the centenary celebrations of WW2 writer, Alun Lewis.

My colleagues and I went for lunch and they got me a lovely card and some unicorn-themed gifts; I think of everything it's the other people at Seren I'm going to miss most. I really enjoyed my year in publishing - I basically ended up single-handedly updating the blog, which I really enjoyed doing - and I spent a lot of November applying for new jobs.

I ended up getting an interview for a writing job that I really wanted in the city I went to university, where I still have a lot of friends, but unfortunately I didn't get the job and I'm pretty bummed about it. So right now I'm feeling a little down and a little lost, but I'm sure I'll feel more optimistic when I've stopped feeling sorry for myself. For now, though, I'm going to allow myself a couple of days to just be sad.

Vlora @ Reviews and Cake talked about Why She Doesn't Go to the Library

Jamie @ The Perpetual Page-Turner talked about her Insecurities Then Vs. Now

Kaja @ Of Dragons and Hearts talked about giving authors Second Chances

Amanda @ Of Spectacles and Books talked about Cinderella and the Marginalized

What did you get up to in November?

Late November TBR!

Today I thought I'd share with you some of the books I'd really like to try and read by the end of November, but as this is a very over-ambitious amount of books and I don't do well when it comes to TBRs, we'll see how it goes. The majority of these books are sci-fi, because there's no better time to read sci-fi than during Sci-Fi Month!

I received eARCs of both of these from NetGalley, so I'd really like to get them both under my belt soon. I'm actually reading The Only Woman in the Room right now, and I'm planning to get to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet very soon because I've heard nothing but great things about it.

I love historical fiction, and I love it even more when it has fantastical elements, so The Falconer has been on my radar for a while. I picked it up a few nights ago after I received an eARC of the second book, The Vanishing Throne from NetGalley, and I'm hoping to finish it soon and then jump straight into the second book and whack out some reviews!

I love the White Trash Zombie books and I always find them so quick and fun to read. If I can cross these two off my TBR during Sci-Fi Month I'll be a happy bunny, as I'd like to focus on Christmassy books in December and some other books I'd really like to have read by the end of the year.

I'm hoping I get to all of these. The Falconer and The Only Woman in the Room I'll definitely finish, and if I can read The Vanishing Throne and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, too, then I'll have crossed three of my eARCs off my TBR before I dive into my Christmassy eARCs! If I can, though, I'd love to get to those White Trash Zombie books, too.

What are you reading at the moment?

Sci-Fi Month | Do the Undead Breathe New Life into our Classics?

Sci-Fi Month is hosted by Rinn @ Rinn Reads, and this year I'm participating!

Retellings aren't new. We've been retelling stories for centuries - every country seems to have a different ending to some of the world's most famous fairy tales, like Little Red Cap - and it's only in recent years that retellings have taken the publishing world by storm, from Fables to The Lunar Chronicles.

Of course, fairy tales aren't the only stories to find themselves being given a fresh lick of paint; our classics keep getting retold, too, and Jane Austen's work is no stranger to these reworkings. Persuasion has been reimagined in outer space in Diana Peterfreund's For Darkness Shows the Stars, and Jo Baker has told Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants in her most recent novel, Longbourn.

In 2009, Seth Grahame-Smith released his own reworking of the story in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and next year it will be hitting the big screen with Lily James of Downton Abbey and Cinderella fame in the starring role.

Grahame-Smith isn't the only author to have added one of our most gory supernatural creatures to a classic. Only a year later, in 2010, Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies was published; a zombie story heavily influenced by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This, too, was adapted, in 2013.

Here we have two of the most famous love stories in the history of literature, both with added zombies. But why?

I suppose the first thing we should consider is this: Are these stories actually retellings or not?

Not only does Pride and Prejudice and Zombies still have the original title in the title, but it's even credited as being written by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen. It's almost as though Grahame-Smith is using Austen's name to imply that she'd totally approve of what he's done with her characters (and hey, she might!), and perhaps that's what's most important here - has Grahame-Smith written a retelling, or has he simply borrowed Austen's characters to write a bizarre piece of fanfiction? Jane Austen Zombie AU.

Usually, retellings add a little something to the original tale. For example, at first glance Marissa Meyer's Cinder might not have anything to do with the original fairy tale, but she's managed to do a lot with her series; she's included so much diversity, from people of colour to amputees, and she's managed to give her Cinderella a little more agency than the original. People are reading fairy tales differently all the time, and I quite like the argument that Cinderella isn't as weak as we might first think because, by going to the ball, she does go after the Prince for herself, but Cinder is so much easier for us to relate to. We can accept how Cinderella might have ended up her stepmother's servant in the original tale, but in a retelling we need a little more proof that a person could ever be treated in such a way, and by making Cinder a cyborg, and therefore a second-class citizen, Meyer does just that.

But what do zombies add to the original Pride and Prejudice tale?

In Longbourn, Jo Baker reminds us that the Bennet family had servants, and those servants had dreams and fears of their own. It's easy to forget that servants are present throughout all six of Austen's novels - Darcy's horse won't saddle itself, and we can be certain Emma never has to worry about her laundry - and by giving them a story Baker reminds us of the historical context of Austen's stories.

Director Gurinder Chadha, most famous for Bend It Like Beckham (starring a young Keira Knightley who, funnily enough, played Elizabeth Bennet in 2005), gave Pride and Prejudice a Bollywood-style makeover in her 2004 film, Bride and Prejudice. Showing the similarities between British high society in Austen's day and Indian culture helps us to fully understand and appreciate just how vital a good marriage is to the Bennet sisters, and also adds some racial diversity to Austen's white, upper class tale.

And zombies... eh?

Similarly, is Warm Bodies really a retelling? At least Pride and Prejudice and Zombies keeps the original characters (to an extent), but the characters in Warm Bodies aren't even called Romeo and Juliet - not that R and Julie are all that far away.

To me, though, Warm Bodies gives a little more life to Romeo by making him a member of the undead. Juliet is a fascinating character. In the original play she has some amazing, violent monologues - in fact Romeo's more of a romantic than she is. Even when she's thinking fondly of Romeo, Juliet thinks of cutting 'him out into little stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.' She's definitely much more interesting than Romeo is.

Julie in Warm Bodies is just as interesting, but R is an equally intriguing character. How often do we get zombie stories from the point of view of the zombies? Throughout the story there are little tributes to the play; there's the famous balcony scene, and Julie's best friend, Nora, wants to be a nurse. Plus the whole idea of Julie literally bringing R back to life is a clever little tip of the hat to Romeo, who is certain he's never going to get over Rosaline until he sets his eyes on Juliet.

With all that in mind, perhaps Warm Bodies is more of a homage to Romeo and Juliet than a retelling of it.

Most importantly of all, does any of this matter? Does it really matter whether or not I think these stories are retellings or not? After all, perhaps by introducing the undead to these narratives they've, ironically, been brought to life for people who might never have gone anywhere near the original stories. Of course, that still doesn't mean they are going to go anywhere near the originals - how many people, upon finishing Warm Bodies, decided to go and read Romeo and Juliet? Probably not that many. How many Austen fans enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Again, I don't think that many Austen lovers did, whereas people who weren't already lovers of Austen's work thought it was clever.

So whose opinion is more valid? Do we rely on the feedback of the book purists, or do we ignore them in favour of this new audience because, let's face it, the new audience is one of the big reasons for retelling such a famous story in the first place?

Personally, I think Warm Bodies is quite a clever reworking of probably the most famous love story of all time. Even people who've never gone anywhere near Shakespeare can quote from Romeo and Juliet, which just goes to show how influential the text is. I've always read Romeo and Juliet as a story about what hate can do rather than a love story; this family's feud, so old they can't even remember how it started, brings about the death of several young people, including their own children.

Adding zombies to such an iconic story might sound ridiculous at first - though I'm sure plenty of people told Baz Luhrmann that setting the story in '90s America would be a mistake at first - but stories continually change depending on their context. At the start of Sci-Fi Month I mentioned how one of the things I love about sci-fi is how we can see how a society's feeling depending on the way it writes its sci-fi; over the past thirty years we've gone from writing about hoverboards to post-apocalyptic wastelands. We currently live in a time where young people are looking at the future and finding it to be bleaker than they'd like, and our sci-fi reflects that. Warm Bodies is Romeo and Juliet for today's audience. It's bleak, and yet it's also so incredibly hopeful. In some ways it does the complete opposite of the original text by starting out hopeless and working its way towards a brighter future.

Pride and Prejudice, on the other hand, doesn't need that reworking. At least not in my opinion. What bothers me about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - as much as I think it's a fun idea, and, ultimately, I do think it's only meant to be a bit of fun - is that it's trying to give us a 'kick-ass' Elizabeth Bennet. The only problem? Elizabeth Bennet's already kick-ass. I fear that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is going to fall into the trap of suggesting women can only be brilliant heroines when they're also capable of punching your lights out.

Now for all I know this isn't the case at all. I haven't read the book and the film isn't out yet - and I must admit, I do love that brief scene in the trailer of the Bennet sisters hiding daggers beneath their skirts - but it does feel as though Grahame-Smith has tried to update Pride and Prejudice when it doesn't really need updating. Elizabeth and her sisters - and Charlotte Lucas, too - are still perfectly relatable characters. Do we wish Elizabeth would give George Wickham a huge wedgie? Yes, of course, but just because she doesn't do that doesn't make her a character in need of updating.

Warm Bodies works because Romeo's a bit of a sap, he seems to exist just so Juliet can fall in love with him; Juliet's journey is less about true love and more about escaping from a home she hates, with a mother she's not particularly close to and a father who's willing to marry her off to a man she hasn't chosen herself. Romeo could have been anyone, but if you're going to run away from home and elope so that no man of your father's choosing will ever want you, you might as well make it to a man who thinks the sun shines out of your backside. But we don't need to add zombies to Austen to make her sexual and marital politics interesting, because they already are; by the end of the novel (I'm not going to class this as a spoiler because, well, Pride and Prejudice has been around for, like, 200 years) Elizabeth, Jane, Charlotte and Lydia are all married, and all under completely different circumstances. With each marriage Austen tells us something different, and I'm really struggling to see what zombies can do for it.

I do think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is fun and I'm looking forward to seeing it - I know I probably come across as such a grumpy old lady in this post - but as an English graduate I just can't help thinking critically about reworkings like these.

What do you think?

Review | Winter by Marissa Meyer

Winter

by Marissa Meyer

My Rating: 

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend–the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Check out my reviews of Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Fairest!

This review will be spoiler free, but I recommend you not reading this if you haven't already read the other books in the series!

It's here! My most anticipated read of 2015 is here! Anyone who's been following my blog for a while - and anyone who knows me in person - will know that I adore The Lunar Chronicles; it's up there with some of my favourite series, tucked in snugly beside Harry Potter, and now that it's come to an end I'm at a bit of a loss. I at least have the release of Stars Above to look forward to next year!

Winter takes place entirely on the moon, and follows Cinder and co. as they attempt to overthrow Levana and liberate her people. Along the way they find an ally in Levana's beautiful stepdaughter, Winter, whose refusal to use her lunar gift has been nudging her towards insanity since her childhood.

What a conclusion. At 800+ pages, Marissa Meyer had a lot to do in this final book; not only did she have to tackle the entirety of her Snow White retelling, but she also had to wrap everything else up, so I'm not surprised it ended up being as long as it is. I was quite happy with that, though - the more scenes set in this world the better, because I love these characters!

In fact the scenes in which Cinder and her group were together were my favourites, and have always been my favourites; I adore Cinder's friendship with Thorne and Iko, and it was nice to see more of Kai, too. We certainly saw quite a bit of him in Cress, but it was nice to see him finally able to directly help them out.

I was really looking forward to meeting Winter after the glimpses we got of her in Cress and Fairest, and I loved that Marissa Meyer didn't try to tone down her crazy. This poor girl is losing it - seriously losing it - but she's also very endearing, and quite cheeky. Yet again, Meyer has presented us with another heroine who feels entirely different from the other three, and another completely different romantic relationship. Jacin was a lot more likeable in this book than he was in Cress, though sometimes I did find his and Winter's relationship a little annoying; I could completely understand the two of them wanting to keep each other safe, but sometimes they were willing to risk the lives of literally thousands of other people if it meant the other was okay. Yeah, I guess we could argue it's romantic, but considering they're currently living on a planet where the ruler is tyrannical and corrupt it was also slightly selfish. I just wanted the two of them to think outside of each other a little more!

One of the relationships I really enjoyed was the friendship that developed between Scarlet and Winter. The two of them made for a pretty great duo, and given how much Jacin coddles Winter I think she needs someone like Scarlet. I would have liked to have seen a few more scenes between her and Cinder, though, given their close friendship when they were children.

Thorne and Cress are as adorable as usual - I love Thorne, and I definitely have a softspot for Cress - but what surprised me most was how much more I enjoyed Scarlet and Wolf's relationship in this book. I don't dislike either of them, but Scarlet is my least favourite book in the series because there's something quite instalove-y about their relationship and I really don't like instalove. In this book, though, I believed their relationship a lot more, and I looked forward to reading scenes that involved the two of them. In fact I really, really enjoyed Wolf's journey in this book, and I think Meyer was quite brave in the decisions she made regarding him.

But that's enough about the characters - however much I love them - what about the story itself?

Well, first of all I have to say I loved how Meyer incorporated the story of Snow White into a sci-fi setting. As always, there were so many tips of the hat to the original tale; the poison comb, the poison apple, the number seven. Meyer fills every single one of her books with little fairy tale Easter eggs, and I think they'll make rereading these books in future a joy - I feel as though I'll notice something new each time I read them.

I don't think Winter was perfect, but the last book in a series is always so difficult to get right. I don't think there was anything wrong with the book, but there were a few little bits here and there that I think could have been improved just a little; sometimes Cinder didn't sound like Cinder anymore, she sounded like a lost princess when I wanted her to sound like the mechanic from New Beijing. I also felt as though the final battle between her and Levana was ever so slightly underwhelming, but it's important to note that I didn't dislike the book - I think you can tell from my rating that I didn't dislike it at all.

Ultimately I think Meyer did a fantastic job of tying everything up and linking everything together. Sometimes Cinder made dumb decisions, and the group were pulled apart and pushed back together and hurt and healed and all sorts, but I wouldn't expect a revolution to go smoothly. I was pleased to see that Meyer didn't make it easy for them!

I love this world and these characters so much, they have a very special place in my heart, and I'm going to feel lost without them. Bring on Stars Above!

Sci-Fi Month | Is Alien Gothic?

Sci-Fi Month is hosted by Rinn @ Rinn Reads, and this year I'm participating!

Alien is probably one of the most iconic sci-fi films of all time, but is it also a Gothic story? Well, I would argue it is!

(If you've never seen Alien and you want to, I recommend you watch it before you read this because I will be talking about things that will spoil the ending for you!)

The rise of Gothic literature began in the latter half of the 18th century, with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, being regarded as the very first Gothic novel. Gothic has stayed around ever since, becoming hugely popular during the Victorian period; proven by the popularity of Penny Dreadfuls, and the publication of staples of Gothic literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Even before the Victorian period there was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, and earlier still was the work of Ann Radcliffe, author of books such as The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797).

Even Jane Austen had a go at the Gothic novel in her somewhat tongue-in-cheek friendly parody, Northanger Abbey. Though it was one of the last novels of hers to be published, it was the first one she wrote, and something of a homage to much of the Gothic literature Austen was probably reading at the time.

Later, in the 20th century, Southern Gothic emerged as a new strand of American literature; stories which took place in the American South, and include authors such as William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy and Anne Rice.

Today we have contemporary Gothic, and tributes to the older work of a genre that we simply haven't let go of. Shows like Penny Dreadful are proof of how much we still love Gothic, and Guillermo del Toro's latest film, Crimson Peak, is a homage to all of those Gothic stories that have inspired him since childhood.

That's all well and good, Jess, but where the hell does Alien come into all of this?

Well reader, let me explain!

Something can only really exist as a genre if there are tropes and similarities between the various stories. Jane Eyre is Gothic, but Agnes Grey is not, and yet both of them are Victorian novels about the life of a governess. So what makes one Gothic while the other is not?

Gothic saw the rise of the monster in literature - from Frankenstein to Carmilla to The Were-Wolf - but the setting is also incredibly important to a Gothic novel. You're not about to open a Gothic novel that's set in a quaint little country bakery, or in a busy, bustling city centre; isolation is vital to a Gothic novel, as is a character who must be isolated and, perhaps most importantly, threatened.

Naturally, that isolated, threatened character, more often than not, is a vulnerable and (probably) virginal young lady. She's Jane Eyre in Thornfield Hall; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey; Emily St. Aubert in Udolpho; Mrs de Winter in Manderley; Ellen Ripley in Nostromo.

There's a lot of cross-over between Gothic and horror, though the two aren't the same. In Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's brilliant 2012 film The Cabin in the Woods, they talk about the archetypes in horror - The Whore, The Athlete, The Scholar, The Fool, The Virgin - and how it is always The Virgin who either survives or dies last. This idea translates to Alien, too, and it must be one that's been influenced by the pool of Gothic heroines from the 18th century and beyond. By the end of the movie Ripley is the only survivor from the Nostromo, starting a franchise that has given us one of the best action heroines in film history, but only after she's fought her way free from the Nostromo and the monster lurking inside it.

The Nostromo might not be a manor house, but it's certainly an isolated, claustrophobic setting. After all, where is more isolated than outer space? The Alien might not be as sophisticated as Dracula or as tragic as Frankenstein's Monster, but she's still become one of the most famous monsters around. Ellen Ripley might not be defenceless and innocent in the same way someone like Catherine Morland is, but she's certainly a descendent of those earlier Gothic heroines; a mixture of vulnerability and capability, and downright determination, that have made her one of the most genuine heroines to come out of '70s movies.

So, is Alien Gothic? Yes - and it's brilliant!