Weekly Book Round Up #44

So this was meant to be last Friday's weekly book round up, but I've been really ill with Tonsillitis so today is my first day back to blogging! I'll hopefully have some beauty box posts later this week for y'all!

This book is the second in the Blackwell Pages series, written by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong. The books are aimed at young adults, and follow a group of teens who are the chosen champions of Norse gods and face the challenge of trying to prevent Ragnarok. With all the hype surrounding Norse mythology at the moment (partly in thanks to Chris Hemsworth's Thor) these books could not have come out at a better time. I do find them a bit childish in places, but the adventures are fun and the quest has kept me immersed in the story. I don't know a lot about Norse mythology, but these books have made me interested to learn a bit more about it.


Nicola's rating: 3.5/5

This was a bit of an impulse purchase for my kindle before we went on holiday. We saw the film last year and I liked it, so I decided to give the book a try. The book is very different to the film, and I found it quite hard to get through in places. There are a couple of quite long winded chapters that go on about various American football games the main character goes to see, and while I can understand why they were included, I just found them a bit boring. The main story is about Pat, who has mental health issues for undisclosed reasons (at the beginning of the story). He is introduced to Tiffany through friends who are clearly trying to get the two of them together. Even with the boring football chapters, I really enjoyed this book. It was definitely interesting to read about the different ways people react to mental health issues, especially one scene in particular when a football player is being derided by the crowd at a game for supposedly attempting suicide. Pat's brother is among those who are jeering, even though he has a close member of his family who has struggled with serious depression, and other issues. 



Nicola's rating: 4/5

Weekly Book Round Up #25

 

 

This book intrigued me from the start. Edited by Melissa Marr, and including short stories from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Kelley Armstrong, and the duo who wrote the Beautiful Creatures trilogy, Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia, I couldn't help but grab this from Amazon. The stories themselves are retellings of tales that have influenced each author. I found that the stories I knew such as Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty were my favourites. The retellings of stories that I didn't know didn't really have that special edge, as I couldn't really tell what was different about them. Still an enjoyable book though, and definitely worth a read if any of the authors I mentioned floats your boat. I think my personal favourite was Neil Gaiman's retelling of Sleeping Beauty.

 

 

Nicola's rating: 3/5

 

 

 

 

 

 I was pretty excited to see what Alyxandra Harvey's new series would be like, after the Drake Chronicles ended last year. I've heard that this is a trilogy, but I'm pretty sure the Drake Chronicles was extended a couple of times, so this could possibly go the same way. The book is set in Victorian London, and follows three cousins. Emma, Gretchen and Penelope have been unaware their whole lives of the fact that they come from a long line of witches, until Emma unwittingly breaks the spell that was keeping them bound. Now, they have to attend a finishing school for high society witches. Following in a similar vein to Gail Carriger's Finishing School series, except without the steampunk element, I really enjoyed this book. If you're a fan of witches, ghosts, gargoyles and fairytales, this book is probably for you!


Nicola's rating: 4/5


In other news, I did mention that I'd be subscribing to Birchbox for the first time this month as an alternative to Glossybox. I'm getting pretty irate though, as they've taken my payment for the January box but I've still not received it. I emailed them last week and was told that my replacement box would be with me soon. I've emailed them again to complain but I've not had a response, and I've not received any dispatch notifications either. Is anyone else having problems?
 

 



Weekly Book Round Up #24

 

 

This was such a weird book. Having read Melissa Marr's stuff before, I'd kind of got her down for creepy fairytales, but this was completely different. The story is set in a world inhabited by people who have always been there, and the 'arrivals'. The arrivals always appear when someone dies, and they come from different times and places, with no obvious pattern. However, not every death is permanent. Occasionally people wake up after 6 days. The world is described as sort of wild westy, very cowboyish. Lots of guns and saloons, and rival factions fighting for power, and for the newest arrival to join their side. Considering this was a short book, it took me quite a long time to get into it. I liked that it was something a bit different, but at the same time didn't enjoy as much as her other books.

 

 

Nicola's rating: 2.5/5

 

 

 

 

 

I've been interested in this since it came out. I love the Stephanie Plum books, so I couldn't wait to get my teeth into this. This is a new series from Janet Evanovich, which follows Kate O'Hare, an FBI agent, and Nick Fox, a con man she's been chasing for 5 years. In exchange for his freedom, the FBI decide to team Nick and Kate up to catch criminals through elaborate cons. I loved this, it was ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as Stephanie Plum, funny, sexy, and fast-paced. I love that they've set up the team from this con to reappear in the next book, and I can't wait for it to come out!

 

 

Nicola's rating: 4/5

 

 

 

Another two book week unfortunately. I've been insanely busy at home and at work this week, so reading has had to take a bit of a backseat!

 

 

 



Weekly Book Round Up #21



This is another quite lame Weekly Book Round Up unfortunately! I only just managed to finish the massive David Starkey book that I talked about last week on Wednesday. I was lucky enough to get some lovely Amazon vouchers for Christmas so I had a bit of a splurge and bought myself some 'real' books, and kindle books. The book I'm going to be reviewing today was one of my kindle purchases. I'm not going to go over the David Starkey book again as I sort of told you all about it last week!

 

 



 

 

Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series was a bit hit and miss for me. I really enjoyed one set of characters, but the other set bored me. So considering the 5 book series alternated between the two sets of characters, I only really enjoyed 3 of the books. The series followed the faeries of Summer and Winter courts, and the coming battle between the two. Desert Tales is a companion book to the Wicked Lovely series which takes place around the same time as the fourth novel. You don't see a lot of the original characters, this is mainly introducing new characters and storylines. It follows Rika, who is a solitary fae who is forced to take a more active role in the desert faeries politics to protect them from being bullied into allying with the Summer court. It's a relatively short story, but it was nice to revisit the world of Wicked Lovely again, and you don't really need to have read the Wicked Lovely books to enjoy this novel.



Nicola's rating: 3.5/5







 



 

I'll try and have a few more books in my round up next week! I've got a few thin ones to read, so hopefully I can flesh these posts out a bit more.