Book Reviews

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell [Book Review]

 in Adult / Book Reviews / Books / Books-to-Movie / Young Adult by

Summary

“When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

This was another Christmas book and I swear, I devoured this one sooooo fast. I am obsessed with this book, the story and just everything to do with it honestly.

It’s a memoir but it didn’t feel like it at all.

It’s so challenging to keep in mind while you read this that the book is based on true events. It’s just so…unbelievable with everything that happened. But, it was a different time then, in a completely different world than any of us are used to. So, anything is possible in Corfu. You must always remember that! But while this is a memoir, it never felt like it. Memoirs can be sometimes dry and a little dull and a drag to read, but this one was a page turner. It was hilarious, exhilarating, heart-warming, sad and just everything you needed.

Who needs a vacation when you can travel in these wonderful books?!

Honestly, I felt like I had this wonderful vacation while reading this book. I was able to imagine the sun and the warmth and I just felt like I was part of this incredibly dysfunctional family in a wonderful way. I honestly don’t know what it was, but you just were able to feel like you were with this family in their trials and tribulations, there for just everything. It’s so wonderful and beautiful to read and the fact that there are 2 other books (The Corfu Trilogy) makes me so happy!!!

The writing was just so beautiful and eloquent.

The writing was unlike anything else. Reading about this young boy, Gerald, the author (who the story is about) and everything he went through, from his perspective as a young boy, was unlike anything else. Gerald is disgustingly smart and just such a free spirit. Reading about his perspective on everything that was happening was just so different. I don’t have tons to compare it to as besides memoirs for school that I have to read, I honestly don’t read many of these, but based on the few that I have read, this was, by far, the most enjoyable ever!!!

Overall this is a book that EVERYONE needs to read.

It’s just so sweet and innocent and a beautiful book to read during these really troubled times. It was a fantastic escape, and once I get through a few other reads, I will be working through the rest of this trilogy! Everyone needs that book in their life that they can pick up and relax to, and for me, this is one of them. I felt so calm reading it and was constantly laughing out loud. It’s such a wonderful story, and there’s an amazing TV show to boot that does a fantastic job depicting the book (it’s on Amazon so check it out if you can!). But of course, read the book first!!!!

I easily give this book 5/5 teacups. This is one of the few books that will hold a special place in my heart.

5 teacups

Happy Reading!

A Discovery of Witches by Debroah Harkness [Book Review] 12

 in Book Reviews / Books by

Summary

“Deborah Harkness’s sparkling debut, A Discovery of Witches, has brought her into the spotlight and galvanized fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.

Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar’s depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in book two, Shadow of Night, and concludes with The Book of Life.”

–From Amazon.com

Review

This book was a Christmas gift and boy am I glad that I got it. Apparently there is a tv show based on the book that had season 1 come out last year, and I remember seeing the trailer and thinking ‘oh this will be a good show’ and then completely forgot about it. So, my mum got me this book for Christmas and immediately people on bookstagram lit up saying things like, ‘you’re going to love it. that book is amazing’, or similar statements. So I was immediately excited.

My gosh was it amazing.

So well written it kept you captivated!

I honestly couldn’t put this book down. It’s a pretty meaty read, into the 500 pages or so, with small font and larger pages, but I honestly couldn’t put it down. I devoured it in a week. The writing, while the sentences weren’t complex like older stories, no short like new stories, were just so well structured with descriptive language. I mean, it was just so descriptive and there was so much beautiful stuff going on. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was kind of like watching a movie in my head, because Harkness explained everything that I just got to go along for a ride. Which I really did love!

The story was so unique – even though you had the cliche romance.

When it became clear that there was going to be romance, I had a moment of ‘oh no, this is going to be some sappy YA romance thing with witches and vampires’ but boy was I wrong! Yes, there was romance but that was only part of the story. There was so much traveling, so many things going on, and it was such a new twist on the witchy stories. I don’t really read many books that have witches in it, now that I think about it. Or at least not frequently. So, this was really refreshing.

The setting was fantastic – so much traveling all over!

I really loved the setting in England and then traveling all around the world and the adventures! I mean come on, who doesn’t like a book with some traveling? But it was like a good kind of traveling. I know sometimes authors have characters move around a lot for a new setting and to fill space, but in this, the traveling was necessary and incredibly intricate to the story! Also the settings that they traveled to, from the small apartment to the massive family mansion that Matthew had…ugh, so beautiful! My mind imagined going from this small little quaint cottage-like room to this Dracula-style mansion…just with more style and light!

Character development – thank god!

I really hate when there is no character development, but there was some here thank goodness. Diana went from someone who hated magic to needing it and accepting and growing and learning as a person. I also liked how Matthew went from this control freak to someone who trusted his partner. I know when I was talking to some people about the book, they didn’t like how dominant Matthew was, feeling that he was suffocating or controlling her, but for me I didn’t take it like that. He was protective and like this old-ass vampire. I mean, what do you expect! I think that their relationship developed beautifully throughout the book though – that is one thing that I can say.

Such an enjoyable ride as a read!

Honestly it was just such a fun ride. Towards the end, with one of the settings in the family house of Diana, I got this Practical Magic kind of vibe with the Aunts and just the entire setting. It was just so much fun and I had such a wonderful time reading it!

 

Because of all of this, I easily give this a 4/5 teacups. Honestly, I’m so tempted to give it a 5/5 but I don’t really ever do that. That is for the most perfect book. But know, that I do feel that it’s much closer to a 5 than a 4 (I just don’t have an image for that).

4 Teacups

Get yourself a copy here and Happy Reading!

Top 3 Reads of 2018 2

 in Book Reviews / Young Adult by

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

This year definitely wasn’t my best year of book reading. I read a decent amount of books, but not all of them for pleasure, as I had a ton of reading to do for my school from my major related classes as well as Spanish literature which was so detailed and I never got to review here.

So instead of rounding up everything I’ve read, I’ve decided to just pick a few books that I really enjoyed and thought were fantastic choices for this year!

Book 1 – Forest of a Thousand Lanters by Julie C. Dao

From Amazon.com

“Eighteen-year-old Xifeng is beautiful. The stars say she is destined for greatness, that she is meant to be Empress of Feng Lu. But only if she embraces the darkness within her.

Growing up as a peasant in a forgotten village on the edge of the map, Xifeng longs to fulfill the destiny promised to her by her cruel aunt, the witch Guma, who has read the cards and seen glimmers of Xifeng’s majestic future. But is the price of the throne too high? Because in order to achieve greatness, she must spurn the young man who loves her and  exploit the callous magic that runs through her veins–sorcery fueled by eating the hearts of the recently killed. For the god who has sent her on this journey will not be satisfied until his power is absolute.

Set in an East Asian-inspired fantasy world filled with both breathtaking pain and beauty, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns possesses all the hallmarks of masterful fantasy: dazzling magic, heartbreaking romance, and a world that hangs in the balance. Fans of Heartless, Stealing Snow, and Red Queen will devour this stunning debut.”

From Amazon.com

I absolutely adored this book as it had such a strong main character and it was so different than anything I had read! Check out my pitiful review (I have no idea why it is so small…), but I definitely loved this one. 4.5/5 teacups!

Book 2 – Gunslinger Girl by Lyndsay Lay

James Patterson presents a bold new heroine—a cross between Katniss Everdeen and Annie Oakley: Serendipity Jones, the fastest sharpshooter in tomorrow’s West.

Seventeen-year-old Serendipity “Pity” Jones inherited two things from her mother: a pair of six shooters and perfect aim. She’s been offered a life of fame and fortune in Cessation, a glittering city where lawlessness is a way of life. But the price she pays for her freedom may be too great….

In this extraordinary debut from Lyndsay Ely, the West is once again wild after a Second Civil War fractures the U.S. into a broken, dangerous land. Pity’s struggle against the dark and twisted underbelly of a corrupt city will haunt you long after the final bullet is shot.

From BN.com

I loved this book so much! It was filled with adventure, once again a strong female character and the story was just so intriguing. I think this could make an incredible movie, just saying!

Find my full review over here – this is certainly one you don’t want to miss!

Book 3 – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

“First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.”

From Amazon.com

This is such a perfect read for the spooky season but honestly it’s great for any time of year. It’s simple, not too scary and a classic that everyone should read. Find my review over here!

Bonus Book – My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

So I don’t have a review up for this book yet, but I just finished My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. It’s a beautiful memoir and one that I absolutely love so it’s definitely one of my favorites! Definitely a book you will want to purchase.

Caina by Joe Albanese [Book Review] 5

 in Book Reviews / Books / Fun / Older Readers by

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

Summary

“Twins tend to be closer than typical siblings. They often share a bond that is oftentimes unexplainable.*

For some reason that bond didn’t apply to Grant and Lee Tolan. Grant was always the responsible one. Lee, on the other hand, was always in trouble and in jail, self-destructing to the point the twins hadn’t seen or spoken in years.

In trouble with the Irish mob who wanted him sleeping with the fishes, finding Grant dead of an apparent suicide, Lee did the only thing that made sense. He switched identities.

Instead of making life easier, Lee is plunged into a world the Irish and Italian crime families, the Mexican cartel and the DEA. Pitting one against the other, Lee enlists the help of friends to save his own life. He will need a miracle.

But Grant’s secret is the biggest shock of all for Lee and he must re-evaluate his entire life.

*Maureen Healy, author of Growing Happy Kids.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the summary of this book, I was immediately interested! I love books that have this action/spy kind of aspect and something about the cover had me curious too. I haven’t seen a black and white cover in a while so it was of course something I wanted to add to my bookshelf!

The story itself was highly entertaining. I read it in one sitting while I was sick and flew through it. My edition had decently sized font (not large font but it was bigger than most books) which helped make it go faster, also made it much easier to read when you’re sick. There was lots of action and it was a page turner – it honestly felt like a crime TV show episode.

I really did like the idea of these twin brothers and identity switching and stuff. It was something new – I mean there are books that have it, but I haven’t read one like this in a while.

It will be an adult book because of some of the themes and language, although with some of the stuff out there, I could see it being an older YA read as well.

I did have a few moments of being confused in the book with all of the mafias and lack of background on who was who. It didn’t really detract from the book, in my opinion, but I would have to remember that we had multiple groups of bad guys crossing each other. But it wasn’t a big deal.

Overall it’s a pretty straight forward book. I like how it touched on drones and using them for drug moving – this could be a reality in a few years so I quite liked the ‘reality’ that the book presented. To me, I liked it.

I classify this book as a perfect summer beach read – it’s fast paced, it’s a page turner, not too long and overall quite enjoyable.

For that, I give it 4/5 teacups (I don’t give 5’s often so 4 is pretty common for a good read).

4 Teacups

Time Crawlers by Varun Sayal [Book Review] 9

 in Book Reviews / Books by

 “I believe a writer’s brain can somehow tap into this multitude of universes and take a peek into the events happening in each of them. This book, comprised of six stories, is my attempt to narrate to you tales from six different parallel universes.”

From his Facebook page

Summary

6 stories. 6 universes.

“1. Nark-astra, The Hell Weapon: The weapons he possesses make him the destroyer of worlds, and he burns for revenge. A high-tech take on ancient Indian mythology.

2. Death by Crowd: The dark desires of the masses; darknet websites fueled by a crypto-currency. What lurks in the background – an advanced artificial intelligence?

3. Genie: He rubbed a lamp alright, but what he got was the shock of his life. An entirely sci-fi take on the djinn myth.

4. Time Crawlers: There are individuals who existing in multiple time periods at once, and there are those who know about them….

5. Eclipse: No attacks, no blood-shed, yet there was an invasion and a conquest. Who are these shapeshifter aliens being hounded by an eclipse?

6. The Cave: The fate of an advanced imperial race hangs in balance as a dark celestial entity meets a legendary protector.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

I was provided this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

When I received an email from Mr. Sayal, I was immediately intrigued by this book. His email stood out to me among a few other emails I had gotten that day.

He wrote in his email,

“Alien Invasion, Dark Artificial Intelligence, Time-Travel, High-Tech Hindu Mythology, Djinn Folklore, Telekinetics and life-consuming Cosmic Entities are the themes in my book which has 6 tightly-knit, fast-paced Sci-Fi stories.”

Immediately, I was like, “I NEED THIS BOOK IN MY LIFE, LIKE YESTERDAY!”

Usually I don’t read sci-fi books because I never find one that catches my interest. I always find them not able to really describe what is happening very well. But this one had 6 short stories, so I was curious, and had such a range of themes that I just had to read about it all.

So, I got my PDF and immediately sat down to read it. 3 hours later I was done and my head was spinning with facts and such horror (in a good way!).

The book had this Clive Barker kind of vibe going on with the stories – specifically The Scarlet Gospels and Tortured Souls.

The stories themselves were simple. The themes simple as well. But the way that the situations occurred was dense and complex. We had scientific explanations of how space and time worked that my brain hurt, but I was oh so loving it. If you don’t like a book that makes you think about the universal questions, this may not be the book for you, but if you do then this is it! We had entities traveling through time and space, people existing among different time lines. The book even questioned time itself. I was like ‘WE FINALLY HAVE A BOOK ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS!”

Time Crawlers by Varun Sayal Book Review

I absolutely loved that fact.

Now the stories themselves were kind of dark, especially Death by Crowd. It was focusing on the darknet and how people could purchase a way in to watch someone burn alive. The idea itself seems crazy, but not far from the truth at all. These things do happen and I’ve never read a book before that brings that idea in and then starts to question the morality and talk about the situation, and how it occurred, in the way that this book did. I mean honestly, it just blew my mind!

As the stories were short, some did move kind of fast and I would have loved for them to have gone on longer as there were some explanations that were avoided or cut short. I understand why, and the shortness of the stories was a draw, but I just wanted to read more!

Honestly, overall, I was really surprised. It was one of the best e-books that I’ve been asked to read. I was thoroughly impressed in the way the stories were written and the sheer specificity the author went into to describe these situations.
I can’t stop thinking about the book and it has really stuck with me.

Find him on Facebook here and Twitter here.

Check back tomorrow to see a fantastic interview with him!

About the Author

“VARUN SAYAL is an engineer and MBA from I.I.T. and I.S.B. (top schools in India), who has been involved in theatre as a playwright, actor, and director, and has also been an independent movie-maker. His genre of writing is predominantly science fiction blended with mythology and a sprinkle of the gruesome actualities of life. In his own words:
“I think of each story as a surreal, fast-paced narrative that pulls in the reader right from the beginning, takes them through a voyage into an alternate dystopian realm, bequeathing to them images etched permanently on their minds. I live by the quote, ‘a true art calms a disturbed mind and disturbs a calm mind.’”

-From Amazon