Top Ten Tuesday | My 2018 Spring TBR!

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 On My Spring TBR'. I mentioned in my Winter TBR (and looking at that now I still haven't read any of the books on that TBR - oops!) that I love to tackle high fantasy in the winter, but as it's a genre I've been starting to get back into that's something I'd like to keep going - especially as I didn't actually read any of the high fantasy I was hoping to read over the winter.

Usually I try and do themed seasonal TBRs, but this time I've just gone for books I'm in the mood for at the moment, including some new releases that I'm very excited for!

The Good People by Hannah Kent: I'm definitely a mood reader, but there are certain themes/genres/countries that pull me in at various times of the year, and for some reason I gravitate towards Ireland in the spring. I think it's all that green. I still haven't read this one even though I loved her debut, Burial Rites, so I need to get to it soon.

Gaslight by Eloise Williams: I can't remember the last time I read a Middle Grade book. In all honesty it's not a genre I particularly gravitate towards, but lately I've so been in the mood for an MG book and I couldn't resist picking this one up. Not only is this historical fiction, but it's historical fiction set in Victorian Cardiff which is so unusual given how many Victorian era novels are set in London. I briefly met the author at Cardiff Book Festival last year, she was lovely, and I used to work with the lady who set up the publisher, Firefly Press, who is also incredibly nice. If you're a big fan of MG fiction I recommend checking out their website - they're publishing some great stuff!

Circe by Madeline Miller: This is my most anticipated release of 2018 and it's due out in April! I'm so glad I only read The Song of Achilles last year, I'm not sure I could have waited seven years for another book from Miller.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth: Embarrassingly, I'm pretty sure this was on my Spring TBR last year and I still haven't read it. Oops. Something about spring makes me crave fairy tales and this spin on Rapunzel sounds right up my street. Hopefully I'll get to it this year!

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig: I've been reading Jodi Taylor's Just One Damned Thing After Another recently and it's whet my appetite for more books about time travel. This isn't a time travel book exactly, but the protagonist is a history teacher with a strange genetic condition that's caused him to live for hundreds of years. I picked up an edition that's been illustrated by Chris Riddell and signed by both him and Matt Haig and it's beautiful, hopefully I'll get to it soon.

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton: This high fantasy retelling of King Lear features three princesses fighting for their father's crown and sounds like so much fun. I'm one of three sisters myself so I love stories like this.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: African-inspired high fantasy! I know it's a bit of a fantasy trope now, but I love 'magic is banned' stories so I can't wait to read this one.

The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine: More Middle Grade! I remember reading Ella Enchanted in school and loving it and I've heard so many good things about this one but never read it. I love stories about sisters, as I mentioned before, so I'm looking forward to cross this one off my TBR.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu: This time some Asian-inspired fantasy! I was hoping to get to this one over winter - especially as I talked about wanting to read more big books this year - but then I started It and I didn't think I could handle two chunky books at once, so hopefully I'll get to this one in the spring instead.

The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan: I've never read any Trudi Canavan but friends of mine read her when we were teenagers and loved her work. I've seen a lot of reviews about this one that aren't great, saying it's full of tropes, but do you know what? Sometimes I'm in the mood for a trope-filled fantasy story, and I think this one is going to make me nostalgic for the stories I loved as a child.

Which books made your list this week?

This Week in Books | 14/03/18

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

Now | Considering I only gave the first two books in the Mistress of the Art of Death series two stars, it's a wonder I'm reading another book in the series. Usually if I don't love a series I won't bother with the rest of the books, but this particular series is a really easy read and, while I don't think Franklin was the best writer around, I do enjoy her characters and I'm never going to let the chance of reading books centred around women in the 12th century pass me by. I'm actually really enjoying Relics of the Dead so far, especially as this book is set in parts of the UK that I'm familiar with and includes legends I'm familiar with, so it's strangely comforting for a book about potential murder...

Then | For the first time in years I read some Middle Grade and I loved the experience of it. I need to read more children's books and now I have a small selection waiting for me to make my way through this spring. Gaslight was another one that was comforting and familiar, being a Victorian era novel set in Cardiff, the city where I used to work. Look out for my review!

Next | Carrying on with the historical theme - because let's face it, when am I not reading historical fiction ? - I'm feeling myself drawn towards Mistress Firebrand at the moment. Sometimes I like to indulge in a bit of historical romance, and this novel, set during the American Revolutionary War, follows a playwright who once wrote comedies and now writes plays for the Rebels under a pseudonym that have landed her on a British hanging list.

What have you been reading recently?

Review | Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodríguez McRobbie

Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings

by Linda Rodríguez McRobbie

My Rating: 

You think you know her story. You’ve read the Brothers Grimm, you’ve watched the Disney cartoons, you cheered as these virtuous women lived happily ever after. But the lives of real princesses couldn’t be more different. Sure, many were graceful and benevolent leaders—but just as many were ruthless in their quest for power, and all of them had skeletons rattling in their royal closets. Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe was a Nazi spy. Empress Elizabeth of the Austro-Hungarian empire slept wearing a mask of raw veal. Princess Olga of Kiev murdered thousands of men, and Princess Rani Lakshmibai waged war on the battlefield, charging into combat with her toddler son strapped to her back. Princesses Behaving Badly offers minibiographies of all these princesses and dozens more. It’s a fascinating read for history buffs, feminists, and anyone seeking a different kind of bedtime story.

Amazon | Book Depository | Waterstones | Wordery | Quirk Books

I received an eARC of Princesses Behaving Badly from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book combines two of my favourite things: women and history. I've been a history nerd since my childhood and was lucky enough to spend many days out at museums, castles and abbeys that my parents took me to. Looking back, it makes me sad that the only women ever really mentioned in my history lessons at school were Boadicea, Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria. All amazing women in their own right, of course, but what about all the other women who contributed to the world's history who have been completely overshadowed by their male contemporaries?

Princesses Behaving Badly aims to set this bias right, and I think it does a decent job of it; there are lots of women in here I'd heard of before, but there were plenty more I'd either never heard of or had heard of but didn't really know anything about.  For example, I never knew just how tragic the life of George I's wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, was. Let's just say George I has quickly become one of my least favourite British monarchs.

There are princesses from all over the world in this book, from many different cultures, races and religions, which I really enjoyed. When we hear 'princess' I think it's easy for us to picture a white, European Guinevere-esque figure - someone from a fairy tale rather than history - so I admire the amount of research that must have gone into the creation of this book to make it so diverse.

I also loved that McRobbie didn't choose to only include the 'nice' princesses, or even the ones that were particularly good at their job. There are women in this book who died defending their country and others who cared more about their wardrobe than war, and by including all of them she hasn't put women on a pedestal but proved that we have been just as diverse as men throughout the centuries.

Having said that, there were some parts that grated on me a little bit. McRobbie has a rant about Disney Princesses in the introduction which I thought was unnecessary, especially as, to me, it came across as 'I'm not like other girls, I don't like Disney princesses because I'm not silly'. I'm not a fan of the belief that Disney teaches girls that they're only worth how pretty other people think they are; I've been a Disney fanatic all my life, so perhaps I'm biased, but one of the reasons I adore Beauty and the Beast so much is because of the message that it's what's inside that counts.

The earlier Disney movies are certainly of their time, but from The Little Mermaid onwards we've had a whole host of strong Disney heroines who are heroic in their own way. No, wearing a pretty dress and a tiara doesn't make you a princess - something another Disney film, The Princess Diaries, addressed excellently - but I'm not going to shame little girls who enjoy wearing dresses and tiaras if it makes them feel empowered.

There were also a few instances where people were described as 'ugly' or 'insane' that made me a bit uncomfortable, especially as these instances didn't agree with other parts of the book. McRobbie criticised Disney for making girls think being a princess is about being beautiful, and then pitied various real life princesses because they hadn't been considered attractive. She also made some excellent points about mental illness not being taken seriously or treated appropriately in the past, only to make throwaway remarks about people being insane. Hypocritical much?

All in all, though, this is a much more positive book than a negative one. This would be an excellent introduction to anyone who wants to learn more about women's history as well as anyone who wants to learn more about history but feels intimidated by non-fiction. This book is written so conversationally that it's a very easy read and there's a wonderful bibliography of further reading included in the back if you want to learn more about any of the princesses involved.

If you're more interested in history that isn't about the royal family then this book probably isn't for you, although the clue's in the title, but wherever your interests lie there are so many fascinating women in this book I think it would be a shame to miss out on learning more about them.

Women's History Month is Coming!

There's only one week left until it's March!

(How frightening is that? Wasn't it Christmas yesterday? I love winter but I do look forward to the spring once Christmas is over, it just seems to come around so fast every year...)

From the 1st - 31st March it's Women's History Month, probably the best month of the year if you're a history nerd like me, and I'm hoping to get some women in history content here on my blog. With any luck I'll have some reviews scheduled and perhaps I'll even be able to write a discussion post or two. Whatever happens, if WHM is something you're interested in then keep your eye on my blog for some kind of content!

Top Ten Tuesday | Never Say Never Apart From When You Should

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’ve Decided I’m No Longer Interested In Reading', and it was a difficult theme for me to make a list for at first because I'm one of those people who doesn't like to say 'never'. 

My tastes are always evolving and changing, so there are books I might not want to read now that I'll suddenly have a craving for in a year's time, so today I decided to go with a list mostly made up of books I've started reading before, given up on and am sure I won't go back to.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: I remember this book being everywhere years ago and I was intrigued because Eleanor is overweight and it's so rare to see an overweight heroine in fiction - it's particularly rare to see an overweight heroine in fiction whose story isn't about losing weight in some way. I've since seen quite a few reviews from people of colour, however, who've said the way Rowell portrays Park made them uncomfortable which really put me off reading it and now it's been so long since it came out that I don't care. The only things of Rowell's I've read are Attachments and Midnights in My True Love Gave to Me and I didn't love either so I think she's just not for me.

Divergent by Veronica Roth: I tried reading this one years ago when YA dystopian fiction was all the rage and while I easily could have forced myself to finish it I didn't want to. I thought it was boring and the society as a whole didn't really make sense to me. The Hunger Games is creepy because it's easy to see how society might have got to that, but I couldn't understand in what world these factions were considered a good idea by any government. I don't think I'm missing out on anything and I know a lot of people who loved the trilogy hated the ending, so I'm going to keep my distance.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: Tried it and didn't like it and I was disappointed! I've heard so many good things about Stiefvater's writing and about this series in particular that I was hoping to enjoy it, but sadly her style isn't for me. Also, as someone who's lived in Wales and worked alongside people whose mother tongue is Welsh, I couldn't get past the butchering of 'Owen Glendower'. His name's Owain Glyndŵr.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han: I wanted to try one of Han's novels after really enjoying her short story in My True Love Gave to Me, but, again, her work isn't for me. This is another one I easily could have finished if I'd forced myself to, I just didn't want to force myself to finish something when I could be reading something else.

Where She Went by Gayle Forman: I liked If I Stay a lot and I picked up a copy of Where She Went with the intention of reading it, but I never did and now I'm not that interested. I think If I Stay is fine on its own.

Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James: It's only in the past year or so I've started to get into Austen and I wanted to pick this one up so I could watch the BBC adaptation starring Anna Maxwell Martin, whom I adore. Unfortunately the book was another I couldn't get into and I ended up watching the adaptation only to be pretty underwhelmed by the story as a whole, so I have no interest in reading the book.

Rebel Heart and Raging Star by Moira Young: Blood Red Road is one of my favourite YA novels. I love the way its written and I love Saba and I love Jack and it pulled me out of a reading slump when I really needed to be pulled out of one. I had every intention of continuing with the trilogy but then I saw more and more reviews that the latter two books weren't as good and eventually I lost interest in it. Blood Red Road is enough for me - why does every YA novel have to have a sequel?

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab: Schwab is another one of those authors who I should love and just don't. A Darker Shade of Magic, in particular, should be right up my street considering it's historical fantasy but Schwab's writing style and I don't get along. Oh well!

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber: I'm always fascinated by novels that combine science and science fiction with religion, so I thought this one would be right up my street. I started reading it, got about a third of the way through it, and still nothing had happened. My patience only goes so far so I put it aside and I have no real desire to try again.

Which books made your list this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | All You Need is Love (and Books)

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 a love themed freebie, so today I thought I'd talk about my bookish otps. I usually struggle with otps - something I've mentioned before is that, for whatever reason, I have more otps from films and tv shows than books - but today I decided to challenge myself to sit down and think about the romantic couples in books I love and was pleasantly surprised to discover that almost half of them are from books I read last year!

(Please be aware that there may be some spoilers in this post if you're the kind of reader who doesn't like to know who ends up with who!)

Cinder and Kai from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer: There are plenty of sweet couples in this series, Cress and Thorne are especially adorable, but I've always had a soft spot for these dorks.

Judith and Lucas from All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry: I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did and I loved it, and I was especially surprised by how much I enjoyed the relationship between these two.

Monty and Percy from The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee: Well done romances that grow from friendship are hard to do - quite often they come across as a little lazy to me - but the relationship between Monty and Percy was my favourite thing about this book.

Molly and Reid from The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli: These two are just the cutest nerdy, body-positive couple and I love them.

Saba and Jack from Blood Red Road by Moira Young: When it comes to fictional characters I have a genuine soft spot for guys called Ben and Jack and I love this Jack in particular, but I loved Saba even more and their chemistry is fantastic.

Achilles and Patroclus from The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: I went into mourning after I finished this book and I adored the way Miller wrote the relationship between these two from childhood through to adulthood. If you haven't read this book yet you're severely missing out.

Rosemary and Sissix from The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: The relationship between Rosemary and Sissix was such a pleasant surprise. I loved their chemistry and hoped something might happen but thought 'nah, the author's probably not going down that road' and then she did! This book is another one of my all-time favourites.

Meche and Sebastian from Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: The above quotation is one of my favourites and always tugs at my heart. This is another one of my favourite novels and I loved the relationship between Meche and Sebastian, both their awkward teen years and their awkward reunion as adults. This is another example of platonic to romantic love done exceptionally well.

Laura and Carmilla from Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu: Definitely not exactly the healthiest relationship on this list, but Carmilla is one of my favourite classics and I've always loved the strange, intoxicating relationship between Laura and Carmilla.

Maia and Csethiro from The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison: If someone held a gun to my head and asked me to pick my favourite novel of all time, this is the novel I'd pick. What I love about the relationship between Maia and Csethiro is that we only ever see its potential, but I love the way they interact with each other and I love that they work at becoming friends before anything else.

What did you talk about this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | Shame, Shame, Shame...

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 That Have Been On My TBR the Longest and I Still Haven’t Read' which is basically the story of my life. So this is going to be embarrassing.

We all have them, don't we? Those books we keep telling ourselves we need to read but then, year after year, they fall by the wayside for other things. I have quite a lot of those books, in fact, so today I'm talking about the books I haven't read despite having owned my copies for quite a few years now.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: I'm pretty sure I've owned my copy of this book since I finished my undergraduate degree, which means I've owned it since 2013 and still haven't read it. It's about time I got on that!

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon: Even worse I'm fairly certain I picked my copy of this one up while I was still at uni. It's one of those books I tell myself I'm going to read and never get to, so I really do need to try and get to it soon.

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber: Like the majority of the books on this list this is another one I came across in a charity shop and picked up because, as a huge historical fiction fan, it's one of the classics of the genre that I feel like I should have read by now. I'm not as eager to pick this one up as I am the others on this list but I'd like to cross it off my TBR at some point.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: Considering I did my dissertation on women in dystopian fiction it's incredibly embarrassing that I haven't read this one yet and, sadly, I know it's still so relevant. I want to read it, I just know it's going to make me angry and upset and I need to be in the right mood for that kind of book.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly: I've owned my copy of this for a few years now and still haven't read it which is ridiculous considering it's historical fiction with a dash of dark fairy tales. So many things I love!

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke: It's the size of this book that intimidates me but my friend Natalie @ A Sea Change loved it and I'd really like to cross it off my TBR.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: Similarly, at around 1,500 pages, this book is so daunting to me. It's the one classic I'd really like to try and cross off my TBR, though.

Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman: Another one I found in a charity shop and still haven't read because I'm the worst. Sharon Kay Penman is an author I definitely need to have under my belt, though, she's so highly regarded in the realms of historical fiction.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: My parents got me this one for my first Christmas home from university. This means I've owned my copy since 2010. Oh dear.

The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift: Yet another one I discovered in a charity shop and would really like to read because I had the pleasure of meeting the author while studying for my MA and she was lovely. This piece of historical fiction is actually set around the area where I went to university so it'd be lovely to revisit it in this book.

Which books made your list this week?