Month: October 2020

October 2020 Wrap Up

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left16 Comments

There was so much I wanted to get done this month, but October just didn’t end up being so great for me. I haven’t done as much blogging or blog hopping this month sadly. I’ve been busier at work, and my fatigue has been worse. It’s been a bit of a struggle. I’m thinking of writing a blog post about my experience of chronic illness at some point, perhaps in December for Crohn’s & Colitis awareness week. I also found out this week that we’re going through a restructure at work. I should have a job for the time being, but it’s quite stressful. I haven’t been told much yet, but it could have quite big implications for my role.

I might not be blogging as much the next couple of months depending how I’m feeling health-wise. The limited time I have when I feel good, I need to focus on writing my novel. But I will still be blogging and reading blog posts when I can!

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – I really loved this one and would recommend it even for people who don’t usually go for sci-fi!

The Roommate by Rosie Danan ⭐⭐⭐ – I very rarely read contemporary books, but I’ve read so much fantasy this year that I just needed to read something totally different. I had no idea what to pick but I’d heard this one mentioned a few times so got it on my Kindle. I didn’t write a review for it because this is just not my genre so I wouldn’t really know what to say! It was okay but I didn’t love it. It served its purpose of giving me a break from fantasy. I would like to read more romance books occasionally, so if anyone has any recommendations please share them with me!

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir ⭐⭐⭐ – I’ve heard so much about this series and I was so excited to read this book. Sadly though, I just didn’t click with it. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a good book. I can’t even put my finger on why I didn’t enjoy it more. It has all the elements I should love in a fantasy book. I didn’t write a review for this one either because I just didn’t know what to say about it, because I’m not sure why I didn’t connect with it. Perhaps some of it was just down to timing and the mood I’ve been in this month.

Manga Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – I read some of these books a while ago as a way to introduce myself to Shakespeare plays I was studying before diving into the play. It can be quite hard to keep track of who is who when reading the plays, and I found these Manga adaptations gave a helpful and enjoyable overview. I realised I had a couple on my shelf I hadn’t read because I didn’t end up studying them.

The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – When I marked this as finished on Goodreads, it showed that my start date for this book was September 2019. I cannot believe it took me so long to read it! I don’t generally enjoy short stories that much, so I’ve been reading the odd story from this collection every now and then between other books.

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong ⭐⭐⭐⭐ – This is a brilliant debut! It’s a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai and I really enjoyed it. (although there was a bit too much gore for me in places!)

This month I ended up with only a couple of books. But I have several ordered which are due to arrive in November so I think I will need to go on a book buying ban! I love YA sci-fi and Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer sounds amazing so I just had to get myself a copy. I also bought Illumicrate’s edition of The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo. This book is just so beautiful, the illustrations are stunning!

Although I had a pretty rough month, I still managed to write double the amount I wrote in September. This month I wrote about 12,000 words of my WIP and I’m roughly two thirds of the way through the book. So I am happy with that, but I know I could have written so much more if I’d been feeling better. I don’t think I’ll reach my original goal of finishing it by the end of November. I’d really like to finish it by Christmas.

What have you been reading? What have you been up to? Chat with me in the comments!

Book Review: These Violent Delights (eARC)

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left7 Comments

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Fantasy  

Publishing Info: eARC from Hodder & Stoughton  

Pages: 464

Star Rating: 4/5

Back Cover Summary:

Perfect for fans of The Last Magician and Descendant of the Crane, this heart-stopping debut is an imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai, with rival gangs and a monster in the depths of the Huangpu River.

The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.

A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang-a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal.

But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns-and grudges-aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.

Thank you so much to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My first impression of These Violent Delights was that Chloe Gong is a spellbinding writer. The first chapter had me hooked with its stunning writing and intriguing premise. As an English Literature graduate, I was all in for a Shakespeare retelling. Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale, and Chloe Gong has crafted an excellent reimagining which uses the themes from the original in an interesting way. I loved that this isn’t the story of them falling in love, but rather of them meeting again after years apart following a tragedy that caused a rift between them. There are also other references to the original Shakespeare play which are very satisfying.

Chloe Gong does an absolutely brilliant job of making the setting come to life. I felt immersed in 1920s Shanghai, in terms of the sights, smells and sounds, but also in terms of the history. I didn’t know much about the history of Shanghai before reading this book, and enjoyed discovering something new. As well as being about romance and the mystery, These Violent Delights also explores very important themes, such as political divides, colonisation and culture. Sometimes I feel like in retellings the stories are transposed to a different time period and/or setting for the sake of it, just as a way to twist the story, but in this case the choice of 1920s Shanghai really worked as an alternate setting for Romeo and Juliet. The story melded with the setting so well. This is an excellent example of how setting, plot, theme and character can intertwine very effectively.  

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Top 10 Tuesday: Halloween Vibes

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left19 Comments

Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here. For today’s Halloween freebie, I decided to pick out 10 of my favourite books that give me Halloween vibes!

The Beautiful by Reneé Ahdieh – This book is so luscious and mysterious. There are dark murders and vampires so of course it makes this list.

The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding – This was one of my favourite books as a teen. I read it over and over. It’s been a while since my last reread though! I found this book spine-tingling and loved it so much.

Poison by Chris Wooding – Another spooky read from Chris Wooding. I don’t remember this one as well as Alaizabel, but I know it was a creepy read!

Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee – I’m so glad I picked this one up, despite my trepidation at the spider content, because I loved the story. The trees are also really creepy! I can’t wait for the sequel to come out next year!

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Let’s Talk Bookish: What Makes You DNF a Book?

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left8 Comments

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books and Dani @ Literary Lion. For today’s topic, we’re talking about DNFing books. DNF stands for ‘Did Not Finish’ and is when you stop reading a book part way through.

I actually don’t DNF books. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t finish a book I’d started. I must have done years ago, but not for a long while. Once I’ve started a book, I’m in it to the end. Maybe this isn’t the best approach though. If I’m not loving a book, should I put it down so I can spend my time on a book I’ll like more instead? Maybe. But I just can’t seem to bring myself to DNF a book.

Sometimes a book can really pick up in the second half, and I end up feeling glad I didn’t give up on it early on before things got good, even though I didn’t enjoy it to begin with. I didn’t find the opening quarter or so of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo that engaging, but it ended up being one of my favourite series. Recently I read Shielded by KayLynn Flanders. I didn’t enjoy the first half much at all and possibly should have DNFed it. But I liked the second half a lot more, so I am glad I stuck with it, even though I didn’t love it overall.

The one time I can imagine DNFing, is if a book has just really bad writing. If the writing quality was really poor, I wouldn’t be able to get through it. Or if perhaps the book wasn’t what I was expecting or includes triggers I wasn’t aware of before I started reading.

I do sometimes give up on series without finishing them. Sometimes I only read the first book and decide I’m not invested enough to keep reading. Other times I read two or more books in the series but then if I don’t enjoy the sequels I won’t keep going with the series. Especially long series, when there is a bigger time commitment. I have to really love a book to read a long series. Whereas I’m more likely to persevere with a duology or trilogy if I’m interested enough to want to know how the story ends.

Do you DNF books you aren’t enjoying? What makes you decide to DNF? And are you ever likely to pick up a DNF and try it again in future? I’d love to know what you think so chat with me in the comments!

Book Review: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left2 Comments

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Genre: Adult, Science Fiction

Publishing Info: August 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton (Illumicrate edition)    

Pages: 336

Star Rating: 4/5

Back Cover Summary:

CARA IS DEAD ON THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOUR WORLDS.

The multiverse business is booming, but there’s just one catch: no one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive.

Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying–from diseases, from turf wars, from vendettas they couldn’t outrun.

But on this earth, Cara’s survived. And she’s reaping the benefits, thanks to the well-heeled Wiley City scientists who ID’d her as an outlier and plucked her from the dirt. Now she’s got a new job collecting offworld data, a path to citizenship, and a near-perfect Wiley City accent. Now she can pretend she’s always lived in the city she grew up staring at from the outside, even if she feels like a fraud on either side of its walls.

But when one of her eight remaining doppelgangers dies under mysterious circumstances, Cara is plunged into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and future in ways she never could have imagined–and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.

The Space Between Worlds is an impressive debut. The idea of multiverses and doppelgangers drew me to this book. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but this twisty novel took me on a journey I wasn’t expecting. It strikes an excellent balance between being thought-provoking and entertaining.

The novel explores privilege and power in a world divided between those who live in the city and those who live outside it. Cara is from Ashtown but lives and works in Wiley City, so we get an interesting perspective on the lives of people in both locations and their attitudes and prejudices. The worldbuilding is really interesting and provokes reflection on the divides in our own society.   

At first, I didn’t gel with the protagonist, Cara, but she grew on me during the course of the book. She’s flawed but also likeable. She’s been through a lot and has endured both physical and emotional abuse. Alongside the main plotline, we also see Cara go through a healing process as she explores her past and re-evaluates what she knows about herself through her knowledge of her lives on other worlds.

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Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab (eARC)

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left2 Comments

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fiction  

Publishing Info: eARC from Titan Books   

Pages: 560

Star Rating: 4/5

Back Cover Summary:

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever-and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore, and he remembers her name.

Thank you so much to Titan Books and NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is fantasy author V. E. Schwab’s latest book and is one of the most anticipated releases for 2020. Having not read any of Schwab’s work before, I didn’t go into reading this with any preconception of what to expect from her style. I was excited to read it because it has a very intriguing and mysterious premise, but I tried not to let all the hype around this book give me too high expectations for it. 

What struck me from the beginning was the beautiful writing. I was drawn into Addie’s story right from the first page. Something about the writing just captured me and didn’t let go. The book is written in third person present tense, which I don’t usually like as it can be really awkward to read. However, Schwab writes so beautifully in this book, I sunk into the writing from the first page and didn’t find the third person present tense awkward at all, in fact it read really naturally for this story.

The narrative goes back and forth between the present and the past. In the present, Addie is living in New York and it’s been nearly 300 years since she made her deal. Through the flashback chapters we see what led her to make that decision and how the mysterious, shadowy person she made the deal with tries to persuade her to give in and hand him her soul. My favourite chapters were the ones set in the past. It was really interesting seeing how Addie learned to cope with life with the boundaries of her deal. If everyone forgets you as soon as there’s a door between you, how can you do even simple things like rent a room? If you can’t have a job because everyone forgets you, how do you get money to pay for food? I also loved seeing Addie move through the different periods in history.

I don’t want to say too much more about the plot, as I really enjoyed the experience of reading when I wasn’t sure what to expect. The book’s description doesn’t give much away, and I liked getting to discover the story without too many preconceptions of what it would be about.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue explores themes of time, memory, identity, and what it means to be human, as well as the connections we make with other people. This is a thoughtful and imaginative novel which went right to my heart. It’s a book I will definitely want to read again.