Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

Everything, Everything is Nicola Yoon's debut novel and also the first book I've read by her. Before I picked it up, I knew I would love it. When I started reading, I had a feeling that I might end up crying but ended up smiling instead.

The Blurb:

Live life in a bubble?

Or risk everything for love?

Maddy is allergic to the world.

She hasn't left her house in seventeen years.

Olly is the boy next door.

He's determined to find a way to reach her.

Everything, Everything is about  the crazy risks we take for love.

My Thoughts:

Like I said in the beginning of this post; I knew I would love it and I did. I was not disappointed at all with this book, even though it surprised me with a big twist in the end that I did not see coming.

I liked Maddy a lot and Olly sounded like a really sweet guy (and funny). Seriously.. He made me laugh and smile from the beginning.

So, what's this book about? It's about a girl who is diagnosed with SCID which means that she can't go outside without getting very sick. Olly is the new neighbor guy with problems of his own. They start talking with each other (thanks to his creative (and funny) way to get her to talk to him even though she won't out of fear of feelings). One thing leads to another and Maddy finds out that she's starting to like Olly more and more and the desire of going outside to see the world is getting stronger...

Will she be able to see the world? Will she die if she goes outside and breathe in the air of a world she have only seen through her window? Or will she be able to leave the house even for a few minutes and still be alive and well without any harm?

I laughed and smiled while reading Everything, Everything and I could barely put it down. I was hooked straight away and didn't want to leave Maddy's world at all. I wanted to stay in this world even when the clock showed 3 am and knew I actually had to get some sleep. 

If you want to know how this ends, I suggest that you should read the book because this is a sweet story about hope and love between two characters you will adore from the beginning.

I'm so gonna to see the movie adaption, that's for sure! Hope they don't ruin this book! Fingers x🙊

Bye! x

4/5

Next book to read: The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
Currently reading (Kindle): The Ninth Grave by Stefan Ahnhem
Currently listening to: Equal Rites (Discworld #3) by Terry Pratchett

An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir

An Ember in the Ashes is the first book in the An Ember in the Ashes series and also the first book I have ever read by Sabaa Tahir. I can safely say that I'M SO GONNA READ THE REST OF THIS SERIES!!

The Blurb:

Under the martial empire.

Defiance is met with death.

When Laia's grandparents are brutally murdered and her brother arrested for treason by the empire, the only people she has left to turn to are the rebels.

But in exchange for their help in saving her brother, they demand that Laia spy on the ruthless Commandant of Blackcliff, the Empire's greatest military academy. Should she fail it's more than her brother's freedom at risk... Laia's very life is at stake.

There, she meets Elias, the academy's finest soldier. But Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he's being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined - and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

My Thoughts:

One of my co-workers has been talking highly of this book for a while and, in the end, I decided to finally buy it and do a little research. And here I am, writing this review. 

Where to begin? This was something completely different from what I expected. I fell in love with this book and now I understand why my co-worker's been talking so much about how great An Ember in the Ashes was.

The story begins with Laia and the dreadful night when her grandparents gets killed and her brother arrested. When she comes to Blackcliff, things starts to happen. And the Commandant.. oooh the Commandant... let's just say that Voldemort is like a puppy in comparison. Yeah. If someone is just one second late, they get punished or killed. Depends on her mood. So you can imagine how Laia must feel when she pretends to be a slave and spy on this ruthless human being. 

Poor Elias.. just wanting to be free. And I completely understand him! The reasons I can't say because then I will spoil things and I really don't want to do that. Not with this book. But there are things, bad things he has to go through if he wants to be free.

I like that the author gives us both Elias' and Laia's point of view. And you also get to know them very well. The stories behind these two that builds up their personalities are great. You get to understand why they act like they do. There where times that I ended up wanting to tell Laia over and over again that Elias is not a bad person!!! Trust him!! He's not like the others!! But of course.. I really understand why she's scared of him. One of his people did murder her grandparents so.. yeah.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and I highly recommend reading An Ember in the Ashes! If you like dystopia novels then this is waaay up your alley. Seriously..

So looking forward to read the next in this series! (Patiently waiting for the paperback to get re-published again 😢)

Bye! xx

5/5

Currently reading: Stephen King - Insomnia

Mara Dyer Trilogy

Here's the reviews for the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin! They are not that great because I read them last month and it kinda made it difficult to separate the two stories 🙊 

But here they are and I hope I did alright... If not then you will get more information on goodreads or other pages 😉

The Evolution of Mara Dyer

The Retribution of Mara Dyer

On the Other Side - Carrie Hope Fletcher

On the Other Side is Carrie Fletcher's debut novel (apart from her biography called All I Know Now). I found out about her through her brother, Tom (from McFly, my all time favourite band) some years ago and been watching her yt channel and stuff since then. When she announced that she was writing a book, I was excited to see how it would turn out! And here I am, writing my review on her book :)

The Blurb:
Your soul is too heavy to pass through this door: Leave the weight of the world in the world from before.

Evie Snow is eighty-two when she quietly passes away in her sleep, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. It's the way most people wish to leave the world, but when Evie reaches the door of her own private heaven, she finds that she's become her twenty-seven-year-old self and the door won't open.

Evie's soul must be light enough to pass through so she needs to get rid of whatever is making her soul heavy. For Evie, this means unburdening herself of the three secrets which have weighed her down for over fifty years, so she must find a way to reveal them before it's too late. As Evie begins the journey of a lifetime, she learns more about life and love than she ever though possible, and somehow, some way she may also find her way back to the only man she ever truly loved...

Powerful, magical and utterly romantic, On the Other Side will transport you to a world that is impossible to forget. This is a love story like no other which will have you weeping because of the sheer joy and beauty of it all.

My Thoughts:
This was such a lovely novel! I got sad, angry (at her mother in particular and the tradition the family had.. grrr! What a cold mother she was!) and happy reading about Evie and the other characters in this story. I also had tears in my eyes at one point! The story between Evie and this guy called Vincent (you get to know him after few chapters so no spoilers there) was so sweet, and romantic and also sad. The things she had to let go because of reasons I'm not going to say was devastating.

I liked the way the chapters were divided into different sections between the three secrets she had to let go of. The chapters were divided between Evie's "afterlife" (how she ended up there, what she had to do to reach these people to get to the other side), the past (were we find out what happened when she was young and in love) and the present (the people she have to tell her secrets to). It sounds like it could be bit difficult to follow because of the timelines, but it wasn't. She did a great job with that :) There were also chapters were you first read about one person and in the middle of the page, you end up reading from another character's perspective, which also sound confusing, but wasn't :P (this whole explanations of the chapters sounds confusing to understand....oh well)

There were also moments when I had to read the same things over and over again to figure out wether some of the things that happened was a metaphor or if it literally happened. Like, for example:"my face turned into stone", is it just a metaphor or did my face literally got turned into stone?... (weird example, but you know..) So there were few times were I just sat there and didn't know if there was some magic involved or not :P Other than that, I really liked the way this story turned out. It had some disney-ish about it (like the surnames of the characters and some things that happened) and there was also a Once Upon a Time reference in there as well. I liked that :P

After finishing this, I'm pretty sure there was some real magic going on in there because of the things that happened :P

The ending was amazing and I had a huge grin on my face at the end of it (and maybe some happy tears). All in all, this is truly a wonderful "girlie book" were magic things happens and hearts gets broken. All in true disney style (that sounded weird but I wanted to write something like that so there it was). And maybe, just maybe, there's chance of a happy ending for Evie after all..? Who knows?

Guess you have to find out for yourself! ;)

I know this review sounds confusing and stuff, but I have a reason for that (for once)... I've been really tired today and my head has been a derpiederp all day (even at work I felt like I was a "walking dead"...you know.. the zombies, not the main characters) but I wanted to write this review today anyway so here it is :P

And here I am, signing off.

Bye! xxx

4/5
Next book to read: Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

I've finally finished Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman! There's been loads of new authors that I've been checking out lately (I've noticed) and Neverwhere is one of them. I liked it and I think I will continue to check out more of his books :)

The Blurb:
Under the streets of London...

It's a place most people could never even dream of.
A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.

Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizzare.
And strange destiny awaits him down here,
beneath his native city: neverwhere.

My Thoughts:
Even though I used so many weeks to read this book, I really enjoyed it. Like I said in one of the other blog post; it was a nice change from The Twistrose Key because it was kinda the same but completely different all the same. In this book, they're under London in the sewers and walking around old places that used to be a part of London but are no longer there. That have fallen between the cracks. And there was no animals in this apart from rats. But some of the people in this book was described like different kinds of animals. Such as wolves and foxes and so on...

I'm not sure what to say about this book since it took me so long to finish it. And I also don't want to spoil anything either. But I can say that I liked the characters and got shocked when some (not so good) truths came out :P And when it comes to the ending, I kinda knew or had the feeling that Richard was going to do the thing he did... if that makes any sense... oh well. And that's unfortunately all I can say about Neverwhere. I know it's not much, but this is not supposed to be me summarizing the whole book. These are just my thoughts and that's what I've been doing all along :P

One of the reasons it took me this long is because 1) There's been stuff to do lately and I haven't had the time to read other than late at night, 2) I haven't felt relaxed enough to read during the day and 3) I started to feel tired after few pages in most of the time so I ended up almost falling asleep while reading it (I did also manage to fall asleep while reading). Which sounds bad but I did... Doesn't mean it was boring! I did enjoy Neverwhere! You know... sometimes there are books that you just can't put down and you end up staying up all night just to finish it. And then there are books that you enjoy, but after a few pages you struggle to stay awake and you try your best to continue but fails. And the latter was this book. I still enjoyed it though even though it made me sleepy!!!

That's all folks! A weird review, but hey! Can't be perfect all the time, ey? ;)

3/5

*Next book to read: Before I Go To Sleep, S. J. Watson

Variant - Robison Wells

Variant by Robison Wells is the first book I've read from him. There's also a sequel to this book called Feedback. If you liked the Maze Runner, I'm pretty sure you will like this one as well! It's similar, but with a twist. And by a twist, I mean things turned out to be completely different from what I imagined.

The Blurb:
Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.

He was wrong.

Now he's trapped in a school that's surrounded by a razor-wire fence, where video cameras monitor his every move - and where breaking the rules equals death.
All Benson wants is to find a way out. But when he stumbles upon the real secret the school has been hiding, he realizes that escape may be impossible.

My Thoughts:
When I started reading this, it wasn't like I could barely put it down like other books that's been so good that I can't leave it, but I wanted to see if Benson made it out in the end. It wasn't boring or anything because stuff happened all the time and the way the school was run by teens, I wanted to know what this was all about. Same as Benson.

And then, after halfway through the book when he finds the truth about this place, I couldn't put it down! Seriously, I finished this book around 4 this morning. I couldn't stop reading and when I finished it, I jumped out of the bed and got the sequel out of the bookshelf and continued. When the clock turned almost 5 a.m, I told myself that I had to put it down and go to sleep :P Everything changed and trust me, I did not see this coming, at all! At one minute, things felt a bit strange about this place, but nothing really happen and then everything changed when he found out what was really going on. Usually, you have an idea about how a book might end, but this was something else.

It went from ok, this reminds me of Maze Runner..they're stuck in this school and Benson's the only one in this place who actually wants to escape to What is happening?? What is this place? Omg! I did not see this coming!! You can't trust anyone here! What's going to happen now? and so on.. It ended up becoming a thriller more or less.

Of course, this is my thoughts about this book and I thought this turned out to be one awesome story. Some people might not think that this was any good at all or maybe thought the twist sounded weird or something :P But, if you like the Maze Runner (and I don't mean the movie version) then I'm pretty sure you will like this one too.

4/5

Wake - Lisa McMann

Wake by Lisa McMann is the first book in the Wake/Dream Catcher Trilogy. This is also the first book I've ever read from her. Before I read this, I thought that this was going to be a bit creepy and stuff. Some dangerous dreams or something. I don't know :P But this was something completely else! And in a good way too! Well, at least I think it was good tho..

The Blurb
Not all dreams are sweet.

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can't tell anybody about what she does - they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant...

My Thoughts:
Like I said in the beginning, I did not expect this. Anyway. This is one of the books you read, but at the same time it doesn't feel like it at all. (If that made any sense? )I started reading this before I went to bed and suddenly it was time for me to put it down and sleep. You know those kind of movies/episodes/youtube vids that is so great that, when it's over, you feel like no time has passed and you look at the time and it's suddenly much later than you'd thought? That's the feeling I got from this book. Probably a bad example but you get the idea.. I hope? It's difficult to describe.

The way this story has been written is so different and peculiar from the others that I've read (apart from a few) with a date and time. There are chapters, but it's split up by day to day and time of day "entries" in Janie's life. I think that this was also one of the reason why it felt like I read it the way I did because the chapters was split up the way they had and the "entries" were short so it wasn't so "heavy" to read.

Seriously... especially this book! Ahh..

From trying to describe the feeling of reading this to how I thought about this book. I really enjoyed reading this and it was surprisingly great. Like I said earlier: I thought this was another creepy book that I would read this week (thanks to the blurb) but nooo. This was a lovely book and with a complete different plot than I thought. Instead of creepy psycho killers with horrible dreams, there was a guy with bad dreams and Janie and him becomes close. The only "creepy"dreams was his and her friend's. Other than that there was some weird dreams and a few sweet dreams. And that was it. No scary stuff at all :P And I'm looking forward to begin on the next book in this trilogy tonight! :)

This must be one of the worst reviews I made, but hey! At least I'm trying to describe my thoughts the best way a Norwegian can to describe things in English!
(Yes...that's my best excuse for writing bad! Ha!)



4/5

Finding Audrey - Sophie Kinsella

Finding Audrey is one of many books by Sophie Kinsella. I have read some of her books (not the Shopaholic series..yet) and I'm in love with her stories. When I found this book, I knew I had to read this because of reasons (that you can read about under My Thoughts :) ).

The Blurb:
Audrey can't leave the house. She can't even take off her dark glasses inside the house.

Then her brother's friend Linus stumbles in to her life. With his friendly, orange-slice smile, and his funny notes, he starts to entice Audrey out again - well, Starbucks is a start. And with Linus at her side, Audrey feels like she can do things she'd thought were too scary.

Suddenly, finding her way back to the real world seems achievable.

Be prepared to laugh, dream and hope with Audrey as she learns that even when you think you have lost yourself, love can still find you...

My Thoughts:
I loved this novel and for the first time (I guess) I could actually relate to a character. I know I say that about pretty much most of the books I've been reading. I guess I'm good at picking books that I actually enjoy! Anyway...so this book is about Audrey (obviously) and she got few types of anxiety disorders. And this is the reason why I wanted to read this because I got anxiety too. And weirdly enough, we both got generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder. When I read about the things she felt when she was faced with something, I knew what she meant. Of course, I got a 'lighter' version of it than her, but at the same time there was things I could relate to. The way the body tense up, the heart beating faster, the feeling that  your whole body is shaking and all don't forget all the things that goes through your head. The only difference was how it all started. She, because of some girls in her class and me, because I felt like a failure at school (if I was lucky I got a 2 + (E+) on most things, maybe a 3(D) on few) and had to take 5 exams after finishing high school because I had failed them. I just isolated myself from everything and everyone, including my bf (we broke up, but are now together again after 2 years :* ).

Ok..so that was a little story about me. I'm not gonna bore you with more of that. If you want to know more or want to talk about things, then we can do that :). Back to the book!

Most of the story is about her brother (the story's from Audreys p.o.v), Frank, who's a gamer and her mother is all over the place and things that games destroys his brain and stuff.. poor woman. And especially poor Frank! Even I got annoyed at their mother! But it was fun though and the ending was priceless. Seriously, I had no idea that would happen at all! I'm going to try and not spoil so much, but there's one thing that I thought was really sweet and that was Frank's friend, Linus. The way he treated Audrey and how he tried to help her. Like I said in an earlier post, I'm a softy when it comes to people helping and caring about others even though they don't have to. And that's what Linus did. Of course, there was a tiny part where he says something and I couldn't help but to think, Oh no, do NOT say that! It's not that easy!! If it was that easy, don't you think she would have done that already??? Trust me, I know... It's not that easy when your whole body tell you to run, and you try and try and try to calm down but your head won't listen... It just get too much. I was really proud of her too when she tried to do things that she thought she would never do again. Even though it was just small steps. But that's all it takes.

I enjoyed reading this novel, and the explanations around the way she felt was pretty accurate. Apart from the anxiety, I laughed, and cheered, and got annoyed (the mother and that little sentence that came from Linus), and laughed some more.

Yes, this might be about anxiety, but trust me. It's funny, with her mother all over the place getting comically angry at Frank because of a game and just...the whole story. It's great, it's lovely, charming...you name it. If you've read any of Sophia Kinsella's book you know you're in for a great treat!


4/5

Cinder - Marissa Meyer

This is the first book in The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. It's a whole different world with old disney characters brought back to life in whole new ways (if that made any sense). This book is about Cinder (don't have to tell you who she's based of)  and in the other books we meet Scarlett (Little Red Riding Hood), Cress (Rapunzel) and Winter (Snow White). The last book, Winter, was released few weeks ago.

The Blurb:

Cinder,  a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai's she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen - and a dangerous temptation.

Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth's future.

A forbidden romance.

A deadly plague.

Earth's fate hinges on one girl...

This is not the fairy tale you remember. But it's one you wont forget.

My Thoughts:

I saw this book in a youtube video earlier this year and wanted to check it out. I grew up with the good old disney so I was excited about this one. It's a whole different world with good old disney princesses in an alternative universe. Cinderella is a cyborg who works as a mechanic. The prince is there (and still handsome) and her stepmother is the same. Aaaand there's also the Evil Queen of course. Sooo..what's not to love?  Let's just say that I loved it so much that I had to buy the next two books. (had to wait for the last book since it got released few weeks ago.. :(  I finally got it noow!:D ) The whole story is great and I can easily connect the names in these books with the old characters.

 It would have been awesome if someone made The Lunar Chronicles series into movies.

Anyway.. I fell in love with this series and can't wait to read the last one! And I will most likely read them again some day!

5/5