Review | Lumberjanes, Vol.2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

Lumberjanes, Vol.2: Friendship to the Max

by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

My Rating: 

Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are not your average campers and Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady-Types is not your average summer camp. Between the river monsters, magic, and the art of friendship bracelets, this summer is only just beginning. Join the Lumberjanes as they take on raptors and a sibling rivalry that only myths are made of.

Check out my review of Lumberjanes, Vol.1: Beware the Kitten Holy here!

I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to read the second volume of Lumberjanes, because while I enjoyed the first volume I didn't think it was anything amazing. I'm glad I did decide to carry on, though, because this volume was a lot of fun, and I definitely enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the first.

One of the big problems I had with the first volume was that I found it very hard to differentiate between the five girls, but I think the second volume did a much better job of giving each of them different personalities; I particularly loved Jo, Molly and Mal, and I like Jen a lot, too.

There are two things I really love about this series: the first is the sense of humour, which just tickles me, and the second is the amount of colour crammed into each and every page. It's so much fun to look at because there's never a boring page, even if the characters aren't doing anything particularly interesting in that scene.

I also can't fault a story that's so enthusiastic about female friendships, and how important friendship is, even if it is sometimes a little cheesy.

The only reason I didn't rate this volume any higher is simply because the plot was just a bit... odd. I didn't see it coming at all, which in many ways is a good thing, but it seemed a bit random. I dunno. I enjoyed it more than the first volume, but compared to other graphic novels out there Lumberjanes still hasn't wowed me yet. I think I'll continue with the series, though!

My February TBR

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't usually give myself TBRs. I like reading whatever I'm in the mood to read, but every now and then I do find myself wanting to make myself a TBR, and this February just happens to be one of those times!

I don't know if I will read all of these, though it'd certainly be nice if I did, and I'm not going to make myself feel bad if I don't read them, but if I can cross them off my TBR I'll be a happy bunny!

Firstly, the lovely Mikayla @ Mikayla's Bookshelf and I are planning to do a buddy read of Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho. Not only is it a beautiful book, but it sounds pretty wonderful, too. I'm hoping I might be able to go and see Zen Cho speaking on a panel at the very first Bare Lit Festival in February, but we'll see...

One of my most anticipated releases of 2016, A Tyranny of Petticoats, is being released in March. Edited by Jessica Spotswood, it's an anthology of female-led historical fiction which sounds exactly like everything I love. The last anthology I read was My True Love Gave to Me, and while it was a wonderful way to introduce myself to a bunch of authors I hadn't read before, this time around I want to familiarise myself with more of the authors. Marissa Meyer and Robin Talley have written for this anthology, two authors whose complete published works I've already read, but I also happen to own Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity, Lindsay Smith's Sekret, and Leslye Walton's The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. As Wein, Smith and Walton have all written stories for the anthology I'd like to read one of their novels first, and Code Name Verity has been on my TBR for yonks anyway.

These three books are all on my 16 Books I Want to Read in 2016 list, and I really want to make a dent in that list! I need to be reading more than one of these books a month if I want to read all 16 this year and I didn't read any in January, so if I can cross these three off my TBR that'd be a great start. It's shocking that I still haven't read The Bell Jar, and I've been hearing wonderful things about Among Others for years. The Paying Guests is the next Sarah Waters book I want to cross off my TBR - it is a bit of a chunker, though!

Last February I set a fun little challenge for myself that I called 'Undead Feb', where I decided to read zombie books in which I was much more likely to encounter a severed heart rather than a love heart. That was the month I introduced myself to the White Trash Zombie series, and I always have such fun with those books that I'd like to read the fourth and fifth in the series. As for Blackout, I really, really need to finish the Newsflesh trilogy. I can't live in denial forever.

Do you have any reading plans for February?

I Want to Be Brave

Since I finished university I've had to get used to doing things on my own. I know, bring out the world's smallest violin.

I'm not saying that to beg for a little sympathy because it's a fact: I really have had to get used to doing things by myself. For me one of the most important relationships in my life are the ones I have with my friends, and I'm sure that's true for lots of other people, but in my family there seems to be a trend of people losing contact with people they were once very close friends with when they settle down to start a family of their own. I can't ever imagine doing that, because to me my closest friends are part of my family and I don't care how cheesy that sounds. There are some close friends I just couldn't be without, but I'm nowhere near them; the majority of them live in the North of England while I live in the South of Wales, and one close friend of mine I've never actually met in person because she lives all the way over in Texas.

I loved my years at university; I made some wonderful friends that I have stayed in contact with, and I did so much with them during my years as a student. Now, as an adult, I suddenly find myself in a place nowhere near any of my closest friends and I don't find it easy to meet new people. My colleagues are lovely, but all of my colleagues already have their own families and friendship circles because they're either older than me or they've been lucky enough to stay in the city where they studied. I tried so hard to stay in the city where I went to university, but no matter how hard I tried nothing worked out. It got to the point where it felt like some other force was literally keeping me out.

I don't mind being alone, I like my own company and I've never been the kind of person who has to be with someone else 24/7 - in fact if I don't get time by myself I get quite cranky. But there's a big difference between being alone and being lonely, and I've done a lot of being lonely since I graduated. Friends of mine ask me 'How do you manage to read so much?' and I can't quite bring myself to say 'Because I'm lonely.'

I have issues with anxiety that I've only really acknowledged in the past year, but it's actually something that's been affecting me for a long time. When I go somewhere new I panic when I don't know exactly what it's going to look like and what's going to be expected of me when I'm there - what if the door I need to go through is a push door and I pull? I'll look like an idiot and everyone will see.

As you can see, anxiety's not fun.

But I want to be brave. I don't want to be angry about my situation anymore, and I don't want that anger to make me miss out on opportunities or excuse my lazy creativity. I barely wrote anything last year and I blamed it on anything else I could when in reality it was only my fault. Yes having my own writing space would be great, but there's no point in me not writing at all until I have that space. I'm a writer, and so I should write.

This year I want to write more. I want to finish all those unfinished short stories and see if I can get them published by entering competitions and submitting to magazines and anthologies. I want to write that novel I've been too scared to touch for fear of it not being good enough. I want to go and do things even if that means doing them alone, because I'd rather do them alone than miss out on them altogether.

It's the very first Bare Lit Festival this month and there's a panel I'd really like to go to, but no one else I know is interested. So what? I want to go alone. I can do it. I want to go the Hay Festival this year but I don't know if anyone I know does. So what? I'll go alone.

I don't want to buy into this idea that doing something alone is shameful. Why shouldn't I treat myself and enjoy my own company? Why should I miss out on something exciting just because there's no one to experience it with? Imagine all the stories I'll have to tell when I do see my friends again.

I already made some New Year's Resolutions this year, but this is more of a Life Resolution. It's not going to happen overnight - I'm still going to have days where I feel down and it's just as important to acknowledge those down days as it is the happier ones - but I want to keep working at it. I'll open my arms to the world, and there's no telling what might happen.

Top Ten Tuesday | A Whole New World

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 'Top Ten Historical Settings You Love/ Ten Historical Settings You'd Love To See or Top Futuristic Books You Love/Ten Futuristic Societies I'd Love To Read in Books', but instead of talking about generic settings this week I'm going to talk about some books, five historical fiction and five sci-fi, in which the world building is amazing.

Historical Fiction

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton: I still can't quite believe this is Burton's debut because it's one of the most stunningly written books I've ever read. Set in 17th century Amsterdam, Burton fills each page with sumptuous detail and lyrical prose. So worth reading!

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent: Set in 19th century Iceland, Hannah Kent's debut novel is the perfect novel for the winter because the bitter cold oozes from the pages. This is also a book that'll break your heart in two. Just so you know.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks: Year of Wonders is the novelisation of a true event in which a village called Eyam in Derbyshire closed itself off to the world when its residents began to succumb to the plague, in hopes of preventing the spread of the disease. The village itself almost becomes a character in this novel, and Brooks describes the isolation wonderfully.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: I didn't love this novel as much as I'd hoped I would, but there's no denying that Morgenstern's circus is wonderfully fantastical. I want to go to the Night Circus, too.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: What I love about this novel is that the setting's unusual. So many historical fiction books set during the Second World War are set in Britain, France or America, so it was so refreshing to read a book set in Germany during the war which painted Germans fairly. It's good to remember that the vast majority of the German and Austrian population hated Hitler more than anyone else did.

Science Fiction

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: I love dystopian fiction that could be a fathomable reality, and in my opinion Collins succeeded with this trilogy. If we were to broadcast a show like The Hunger Games you can guarantee people would watch it, and that's what makes these books so terrifying.

Feed by Mira Grant: Ah Feed, my love. What I love about Feed is that it's a post-post-apocalyptic novel. Zombies exist but not every single society in the world has collapsed. Grant's world building is so well thought out and thorough. I just love this book!

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: I think I'd marry this book if I could. It includes so many things that I'm passionate about and Chambers' world building is astounding. Read this!

Delirium by Lauren Oliver: We all know by now how much of a trainwreck Requiem was, but I thought Delirium was a beautifully written YA dystopia - in all honesty I wish it had been a standalone. When I first heard it was set in a world without love I thought it was going to be really cheesy, but Lauren Oliver has put a lot of thought into what a world without love would really mean and it's so bleak. Wonderful novel, just pretend the latter two don't exist.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer: Obviously this series was going to be on the list. I love it and I love Marissa Meyer's futuristic universe. No more need be said.

What did you talk about this week?

Review | Sofia Khan is Not Obliged by Ayisha Malik

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged

by Ayisha Malik

My Rating: 

Unlucky in love once again after her sort-of-boyfriend/possible-marriage-partner-to-be proves a little too close to his parents, Sofia Khan is ready to renounce men for good. Or at least she was, until her boss persuades her to write a tell-all expose about the Muslim dating scene.

As her woes become her work, Sofia must lean on the support of her brilliant friends, baffled colleagues and baffling parents as she seeks stories for her book. But in amongst the marriage-crazy relatives, racist tube passengers and polygamy-inclined friends, could there be a lingering possibility that she might just be falling in love . . . ?

When January rolled around I found myself craving a bit of contemporary fiction; it's not a genre I read often, so when I'm in the mood for it I usually end up devouring it, as was the case here.

I discovered Sofia Khan is Not Obliged on Leena @ justkissmyfrog's YouTube channel (a channel which you should totally be following if you're not already) and I wanted to check it out for myself. There's no shortage of contemporary novels starring women working in publishing, but I'd never read one in which the protagonist is Muslim. In fact the more I thought about it, the more I realised I'd never read a contemporary novel in which the protagonist is Muslim. Considering I don't read much contemporary I suppose I can give myself a break, but other than the Ms. Marvel comics I don't think I've read any other books, regardless of genre, which feature Muslim protagonists.

Note to self: Fix this.

One thing I love about Sofia Khan and Ms. Marvel is that they're both also written by Muslim women, which is an added bonus. I'm not of the opinion that people can only write about characters like themselves - yes I think more trans authors writing about trans characters should be published, for example, but I don't think that means only trans authors can write about trans characters - but it's refreshing to read about a Muslim woman written by a Muslim woman, especially when so many Muslim narratives in fiction feature breaking away from tradition.

What I really enjoyed about Sofia Khan is Not Obliged is that Sofia is a practicing Muslim. She wears a hijab not because anyone is forcing her to, but because she chooses to wear it. I can't express how important this is when we live in a society that keeps trying to tell women who wear a hijab that they're being oppressed; as someone who is white and agnostic, it's none of my business what a practicing Muslim woman decides to wear. Even if I were Muslim, it'd still be none of my business.

God is very important to Sofia, but don't let that put you off this book; it's not trying to convert you to Islam, it's simply Sofia's story, and Sofia just so happens to be Muslim. Outside of her faith she's like any other woman: she's not quite sure where her life is going, she doesn't know if she's in the right job, she's pretty sure she's going to be single until the end of time, and she's just a bit lost.

Ultimately this book went in a direction I wasn't expecting; it started out as a Bridget Jones kind of rom-com and then became something a little more serious which, given Sofia's journey throughout this book, makes a lot of sense. However, sometimes the tone felt a little obscure because of it, leaving me not quite sure what kind of book I was reading. Having said that, I love that Malik tackled some more serious topics in this book, that she didn't let the genre she was writing in, a genre that's so often met with derision, dictate the kind of story she was going to tell; in many ways Malik's writing process and Sofia's are fairly parallel. 

Basically this book ticks a lot of boxes; it's funny, heartfelt, and thoughtful, and I'm definitely interested in checking out whatever Malik releases next.

Review | This Strange Way of Dying by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire and the Fantastic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My Rating: 

Spanning a variety of genres—fantasy, science fiction, horror—and time periods, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's exceptional debut collection features short stories infused with Mexican folklore yet firmly rooted in a reality that transforms as the fantastic erodes the rational. This speculative fiction compilation, lyrical and tender, quirky and cutting, weaves the fantastic and the horrific alongside the touchingly human. Perplexing and absorbing, the stories lift the veil of reality to expose the realms of what lies beyond with creatures that shed their skin and roam the night, vampires in Mexico City that struggle with disenchantment, an apocalypse with giant penguins, legends of magic scorpions, and tales of a ceiba tree surrounded by human skulls.

Check out my review of Signal to Noise here!

You should all know by now that I adored Silvia Moreno-Garcia's debut novel, Signal to Noise, and with her second novel, Certain Dark Things, not being released until October I turned to her short fiction for my next fix.

This Strange Way of Dying is a collection of speculative fiction, much of which incorporates Mexico and Mexican mythology; I loved the Mexican setting in Signal to Noise, so I was really excited to read more stories set in Mexico, especially as it's one of the countries on my Travelling Bucket List.

First of all: let's all marvel at that glorious cover. Isn't it beautiful? Something about short story collections really seems to attract pretty covers, which is great for shallow people like me who like to fill their shelves with aesthetically pleasing books. Even if this book were terrible I still wouldn't be able to fault that cover.

Luckily, This Strange Way of Dying isn't terrible at all. I'll happily admit straight away that I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Signal to Noise, but I wanted to make sure I didn't compare the two all that much anyway because novels and short story collections are two such different art forms. In fact the only complaint I could make about the stories in This Strange Way of Dying was that some of them weren't long enough; a few I happily would have read even more of because I was so interested in Moreno-Garcia's characters.

There are fifteen stories altogether in this collection, and there were five of them I particularly enjoyed; 'Bed of Scorpions' and 'Jaguar' were two of the stories I would have loved more of, particularly as they both featured women becoming empowered and gaining the upper hand in their respective situations. In fact women gaining the upper hand seemed to be a recurrent theme in many of the stories throughout the collection, such as in 'Shade of the Ceiba Tree', a dark and melancholic story steeped in folklore, and 'Bloodlines', which I especially loved because it featured witches.

My favourite story in the collection, however, was definitely 'The Doppelgängers'; it was so creepy, but so well-written.

I love Moreno-Garcia's imagination; she's one of those writers whose love for speculative fiction is clear, and now that I've read this collection I'm looking forward to reading her other collection, Love & Other Poisons, and her next novel. Basically I'm happy to read whatever this woman releases, and I'm so pleased I discovered her last year. If you haven't checked her out yet, you're missing out!

This Week in Books | 27/01/16

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

NOW: I've started The Vanishing Throne, and I'd like to have it read and a review scheduled by the end of this month if I can - I'm trying to slowly but surely make my way through my eARCs!

THEN: I read my first short story collection of 2016 (one of quite a few I'd like to read this year!) and enjoyed it. I loved, loved, loved Silvia Moreno-Garcia's debut novel, Signal to Noise, and when I discovered I have to wait until October before her second novel I thought I might as well check out some of her short fiction. Look out for my review of This Strange Way of Dying on Friday!

NEXT: One of my most anticipated releases of this year is the A Tyranny of Petticoats anthology, which is coming out in March. Marissa Meyer and Robin Talley, two authors I love, have written stories for it, as have Leslye Walton, Lindsay Smith and Elizabeth Wein. I own novels by Walton, Smith and Wein but haven't read them yet, and I'd like to familiarise myself with their work before the anthology is released. I've heard nothing but amazing things about Code Name Verity, so I'm planning to read it first!

What are you reading?