My Top 3 Anticipated Releases of 2018!

I try to take part in Top Ten Tuesday every week and not too long ago I talked about all of the book releases I'm looking forward to this year. I've since discovered even more and today I thought I'd pick the top three books I'm most looking forward to which are being published in 2018.

It wasn't until I compiled this list that I realised that all three of these books are retellings in some way, which I wasn't expecting as I've been staying away from retellings for fear of reading too many and getting fed up with them like I did with dystopian fiction. Since finishing The Lunar Chronicles, though, I've been eager for more retellings that capture my imagination the way that series did.

In 2017 I finally read Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles and it became not only one of my favourite reads of the year but one of my favourite books of all time. I went into mourning after finishing that book and it feels like I read it at the perfect time as Miller's second novel, Circe, is being released in April. Like The Song of Achilles, Miller is giving her own spin on another character from the Ancient Greek legends, Circe, who is considered to be one of the very first fictional witches. This one is my most anticipated read of 2018 and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

I've been pretty underwhelmed with the Shakespeare retellings I've encountered recently. Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl completely missed the point of The Taming of the Shrew and Robin Talley's As I Descended didn't capture Macbeth in the way I'd hoped, but when I heard Tor were publishing a high fantasy novel inspired by King Lear I knew I had to keep it on my radar. I've been getting back into high fantasy since reading and adoring The Goblin Emperor back in 2015 and I'm so looking forward to reading a story about three sisters fighting for the same crown. I've yet to read any Tessa Gratton but I have high hopes that I'm going to love The Queens of Innis Lear.

I'm probably as surprised as you are to see this book here as it's no secret that I wasn't the biggest fan of Uprooted. I didn't dislike it, but it left me feeling a bit empty and took me a long time to get through. I wasn't all that intrigued when I heard Naomi Novik was releasing another fairy tale inspired book until I came across Spinning Silver and realised she'd written a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin just so happens to be my favourite fairy tale, I read it so many times when I was younger, and I have been waiting for a retelling for the longest time. I might not have enjoyed Uprooted as much as I wanted to, but I'm hoping to love this one! (I'm also hoping we might have a different cover in the UK that matches the UK cover of Uprooted).

Which books are you most looking forward to this year?

Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Can't Believe I Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. 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 'Books I Can’t Believe I Read'.

Most of these are books I had to read for school or university, but they're all books I'm proud I managed to force my way through considering how much I disliked them or had trouble getting through them. I'm now much better at DNFing books I'm not enjoying, particularly as I no longer have to read anything for a piece of coursework.

If you don't like reading negative things about books (which is perfectly understandable - it can be a bit of a bummer!) then I recommend you don't read any more of this post...

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: I'm so sorry to American Literature, but other than Of Mice and Men I did not have a good experience with it in school. This story seemed so unnecessarily depressing and I got so bored of talking about the American Dream in my English Lit classes.

The Withered Root by Rhys Davies: I ended up reading this one while helping to format the eBook at my publishing internship. All I can remember is how much I hated it.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: I loathe this book. I know it's a favourite of so many people's and I totally respect that, it's just not for me.

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie: I did a really interesting module on Victorian Popular Fiction at university where we studied detective fiction, adventure fiction and children's fiction. It was a brilliant module but it made me realise just how twisted the original Peter Pan story is, and something about it made me too uncomfortable to enjoy it.

Wise Children by Angela Carter: This one just felt weird for the sake of being weird and I didn't like it at all when I had to read it in school. I wish The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories had been my introduction to Carter and not this strange novel.

The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathius Malzieu: If I had to pick the absolute worst book I'd ever read this one might be it. I forced my way through it because it's so short, more of a novella than a novel really, but it's just awful.

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler: I forced my way through this retelling of The Taming of the Shrew hoping it would get better. It didn't.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne: I'm very lucky to have been to see the play in London, which I really enjoyed, but the script and story itself I didn't like at all. This story does such a disservice to some of my favourite characters and for me Scorpius was the only saving grace.

The Gift by Alison Croggon: I didn't dislike this one, I just remember it took me a long time to get through it and that it wasn't particularly memorable so I'm surprised I managed to force my way to the end of it.

Requiem by Lauren Oliver: I loved Delirium, and I think even with that ending it would have been a fantastic standalone, then Pandemonium came along and made Delirium just like every other YA dystopian triloy, then Requiem came along and kicked us all in the teeth. I like to pretend Pandemonium and Requiem never happened.

Which books made your list this week?

Review | Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Prime Meridian

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My Rating: 

Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts. But she’s trapped in Mexico City, enduring the drudgery of an unkind metropolis, working as a rent-a-friend, selling her blood to old folks with money who hope to rejuvenate themselves with it, enacting a fractured love story. And yet there’s Mars, at the edge of the silver screen, of life. It awaits her.

Amazon | Book Depository | Innsmouth Free Press

I've been a huge fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's work since her debut novel, Signal to Noise, became one of my favourite novels of all time back in 2015 so I couldn't let the opportunity to support the publication of her new novella pass me by. I, along with the other lucky backers, were able to receive copies of Prime Meridian in December, but it will be available for everyone else to buy this summer!

I've read two of Moreno-Garcia's novels so far and am currently reading her third, The Beautiful Ones, and I've also read one of her short story collections, This Strange Way of Dying, so I was interested to see her bridge the gap between novel and short story with a novella. Novellas are something I've become more and more interested in lately and there are so many more I'd like to read, and now I'm glad to have this one under my belt.

At this point Moreno-Garcia is already one of my favourite authors so I knew I was going to enjoy it, but I didn't know what to expect from it. In the realms of SFF I lean far more towards fantasy than science fiction and the science fiction I do love is quiet, character-focused sci-fi such as Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Luckily for me, Prime Meridian is also that kind of sci-fi.

Amelia is a college dropout, forced to quit her academic pursuits to look after her mother before she passed away and now stuck sharing a tiny apartment with her pernicious sister. Now she works odd jobs, from working as a professional friend for the lonely to donating blood to those who believe it will restore their youth, all the while dreaming of a fresh start as a colonist on Mars.

Once again Moreno-Garcia's writing was a dream. This is moody sci-fi at its best, full of equal measures of regret and hope and reminiscent of films such as the 1990 version of Total Recall with elements of early sci-fi novels such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. There's a wonderful Old Hollywood vibe throughout the story, making this the ideal novella for fans of Catherynne M. Valente's Radiance or indeed for any fans of those old classic movies starring beauties like Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren.

But it's Amelia who ultimately steals the show throughout this story. What I love about her is how unspectacular she is. She's a young woman like any other, looking around at her life and wishing for something better in a city where there are no jobs and all the money she does manage to earn has to go on getting by one day at a time. There are so many times when she could settle for what's in front of her, even a relationship with someone who has the finances to keep her in a better place than the one she's accustomed to, but that dreamer in her never quite goes to sleep, never quite gives up, and it's her quiet persistence I loved most.

I'm in the middle of a bit of a change in my own life right now. Next week I'm starting a new job and moving to a new city where I know absolutely no one, and this novella was just the kind of pep talk I needed. Whether you love sci-fi or you're fairly new to the genre there's something in this novella for you, and I implore you to get your hands on a copy later this year.

Top Ten Tuesday | Readfresh My Memory

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. 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 'Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About'. I decided to play around with the theme a little this week and talk about ten of my favourite/most loved books that I'd like to reread because it's been a while since I last read them!

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling: It's been a long time since I last read this series and every year I say I'm going to reread them only to forsake them for newer reads. This year I'd really like to try and get to them because it's been so long since I read them I think it'll be like reading them for the first time all over again.

Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman: This was the first book that made me bawl my eyes out. I'd like to reread it soon, especially as I believe there's finally going to be an adaptation on the BBC!

Sabriel by Garth Nix: I have a copy of Goldenhand that I still haven't read because it's been so long since I read The Old Kingdom series I've forgotten quite a lot about it. I'd love to reread these books because I adored them growing up and Sabriel was always one of my favourite heroines.

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya: Fun fact! Natsuka Takaya and I have the same birthday. I love the anime and read the manga when I was younger but only read up to around volume 11, so I'd love to reread the series from the beginning and finally finish it.

Witch Child by Celia Rees: Celia Rees was one of the most formative authors of my childhood and early teens, and it's thanks to her that I grew up so interested in historical fiction and books about witches and witchcraft in particular. I loved Witch Child the first time I read it, but I do worry that I might not love it as much if I read it again now.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: A film adaptation of this one is being released later this year starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson so I'd like to try and reread it before I see the film. It's an excellent book and one I highly recommend if you're in the mood for a ghost story!

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie: I had to read this one during my first year of university and I really, really enjoyed it. I'd love to read it again.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Another one I had to read for university, although I grew up loving the 1993 adaptation, and another one I absolutely loved. This is probably my favourite children's classic, with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a very close second, and I think this would be a lovely one to reread in the spring.

Feed by Mira Grant: One of my favourite books of all time and yet it broke my heart so much that I haven't read it from beginning to end again since the first time I read it. I think I might try and reread this one this year!

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë: My favourite Brontë and one of my favourite Victorian novels. It's a short, quiet book, but I love its exploration of how class doesn't matter if you're a woman - either way you could potentially be treated badly by the men in your life, and that's why it's important to support each other. In my opinion Anne Brontë was the most feminist of the Brontë sisters and I want her to receive far more love than she does.

Which books did you talk about this week?

My 5 Star TBR Predictions!

This post is entirely inspired by Mercedes @ MercysBookishMusings who has invited readers everywhere to pick some books from our TBR that we think we're going to give five stars to - and then see if we're right!

Ratings are such a subjective thing, and a five star rating varies from reader to reader and book to book. Some readers give a book five stars depending on the quality of the writing while others rate a book based purely on enjoyment, and the best thing about the subjectivity of reading is that none of us are wrong. Sometimes I'll know immediately if a book is a five star read while other times I'll go back and change my ratings having thought about the book for a while.

What I want more than anything is a brilliant story with characters I care about. If the writing's lyrical and beautiful then that's a bonus, but how much I care about the characters and how much they tugged at my emotions is the deciding factor for me.

So, without further ado, below are six books I think (and hope) that I'll love enough to give them five stars!

Ever since I learned about her, I've been fascinated by Joan, Lady of Wales, who was the illegitimate daughter of King John and the wife of Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, and it's so frustrating that we're never really going to know anything about her because she lived so long ago and there's so little record of her. I was in a charity shop when I discovered that Sharon Kay Penman, a highly respected author of historical fiction, had written a book all about her, Here Be Dragons, and I knew I had to have it.

I also came across A Thousand Orange Trees in a charity shop and had never heard of it before until I found it. It has fairly mixed reviews on Goodreads but it sounds like the kind of story that I would love; again it's historical fiction focused on women, this time set in Spain during the inquisition, and it sounds amazing.

Hannah Kent's Burial Rites and Susan Fletcher's Corrag were both five star reads for me, and as Alias Grace is another piece of fiction focusing on a woman accused of being a murderess I'm expecting to love this one, too.

We're going to see a lot of The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock this year, I have a feeling it's going to get the same buzz as Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent. Usually I'm wary of really hyped books but something about this one makes me think I'm going to love it.

The Shadow of the Wind is another book that I've heard nothing but great things about and one that's been on my TBR for years. One of my colleagues read it last year and loved it, so I'm hoping to love it, too.

To be honest it's exactly the same case with A Thousand Splendid Suns. It's been on my TBR for years and I've heard fantastic things; my dad read it last year and really enjoyed it so I need to listen to his recommendation and get to it soon.

Are there any books on your TBR that you think you're going to love?

This Week in Books | 17/01/18

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

NOW: I loved the new adaptation of IT last year and decided to try the book, which is also in keeping with one of my reading goals to not be intimidated by the longer books on my shelves, and at 1,166 pages this is one of the longest books I've ever attempted to read. I'm not the biggest fan of Stephen King but I'm enjoying this one so far and enjoying taking my time and making my way through a book. Yes, parts of it are problematic and, no, I don't think I'm going to consider it a masterpiece when I finish it but I'll be very pleased with myself when I finally get through it.

THEN: I finished listening to A Natural History of Dragons in my car and really enjoyed the experience of listening to it. I'd like to listen to the other books in the series but I'll have to wait until I can afford the audio CDs to play in my car - they're so expensive!

NEXT: It's become something of a tradition for me to read a Binti story at the beginning of the year. I believe The Night Masquerade is the final book in this little trilogy and I'm looking forward to finishing the series and seeing how Binti's story ends - I'll probably pick this one up and whizz through it while I'm continuing to make my way through IT.

What have you been reading recently?

Top Ten Tuesday | 100 Authors of Colour Project

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. 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 'Bookish Resolutions/Goals'! I haven't really set myself resolutions this year, not like I did last year, instead I've decided to make a '30 Before 30' list - 30 things I'd like to do I'd like to do by the time I'm 30 in 2o21. One of those goals is that I'd like to have read 100 authors of colour by the time I turn 30, so today I'm sharing some books by some authors of colour I've yet to read but would like to read soon.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: This book was everywhere in 2017 and I've heard so many good things that I know I need to read it soon. I'm determined to get to this one this year!

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng: I love stories about mixed race characters, and this story follows a half-English, half-Chinese boy in WW2 era Penang who befriends a Japanese diplomat. I've heard really good things about this one!

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: I've heard so many wonderful things about this one and it's been on my TBR for a while now, so I'd like to read it soon. I have a feeling it's going to make me cry, though.

Lullaby by Leïla Slimani: This The Hand That Rocks the Cradle-esque thriller has just been released this month and it sounds deliciously dark.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: Another book I meant to get to in 2017 and didn't. This is a family saga which explores the relationship between South Korea and Japan - I know very little about that history and I'd like to learn more so I'm hoping this book will be a good introduction.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: In this novel Whitehead has reimagined the Underground Railroad as a literal railroad and follows a young girl, Cora, as she escapes slavery in pre-Civil War America.

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng: This debut follows a young woman in search of her brother after he goes missing in Arcadia, the land of the fae.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu: I was very kindly given a copy of this for Christmas by the lovely Lorraine @ Insanity Sandwich and I've been eager to read Asian and African-inspired high fantasy for a while now so I'll definitely be crossing this one off my TBR this year.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: Speaking of African-inspired high fantasy, this book is due out in March and, as well as having a beautiful cover, sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun.

Djinn City by Saad Z. Hossain: This novel is set in Bangladesh and features genies. It sounds like a lot of fun and is giving me Haroun and the Sea of Stories vibes, so I'd like to read this one this year.

What did you talk about this week?