Catch-up mini reviews! Part 1 - YA

Okay… let’s face it… there is NO WAY that I am actually going to get round to writing proper reviews of all of the books that I have been reading for the past few months. So instead, I’m just going to split the books into categories and ramble about each one a bit. Yay! This first post is for YA. Coming up will be posts covering graphic novels, short story collections, non-fiction and non-YA fiction (I guess literary fiction? But I’m never entirely sure what should go into that). And I am actually going to try and write all of the posts today and tomorrow, so this won’t turn into a thing where I say I’ll do something but don’t. Huzzah!


Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Finally got round to reading some Rainbow Rowell! I LOVED IT. LOVED LOVED LOVED IT! I started reading it while I was on the plane on my way back to Japan, and basically got addicted to it and couldn’t put it down for the rest of the flight (I normally am not a good reader on planes, so this is an excellent sign!) I have Fangirl in a pile of actual physical books at home, and I’m looking forward to reading it! I’m so glad that everyone was so right about Rainbow Rowell!  (Also, speaking as someone who is married to a Japanese man, Asian men are VERY underrated in general, so it was nice to see someone of Asian descent as a romantic interest!)


Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Second book in the “The Grisha” series. I feel like I read this AAAGES ago so I can’t remember it amazingly well, but I do remember that I enjoyed it and it wasn’t a letdown after the first book at all. Looking forward to the next one!







Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

This started out annoying, but I got really into it halfway through and found it really difficult to put down. Weirdly, the bits set in another universe/world were much more believable than the stuff set in this one.







Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

The second in the “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” series, was just as enjoyable as the first, but occasionally said stupid things like “She wasn’t actually old enough for a license, which struck her now as funny. She didn’t know about Morocco, but in Europe you had to be eighteen, which she wouldn’t be for another month…” …what? Because Europe is just one big country which has the same rules everywhere? Hmm. Still, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the next book!



Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Very enjoyable, the love story bit didn’t annoy me as much as it can do in YA, and I really liked the main character.








Fire by Kristin Cashore

The second in the “Graceling Realm” series, and sort of a prequel to Graceling. I still enjoyed it, but the romantic elements in it were too confusing and didn’t strike me as realistic at all. But if you ignore that and just focus on the plot, it was okay! I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series.




I'm pretty sure that's it for YA! Yayyyy!

Jen reads... several books about which she has almost nothing to say

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

This book follows Clay, a young web designer who ends up working at a bookshop (I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to say bookstore, it just feels wrong). The bookshop is open 24 hours a day, which is a bit unusual to begin with, and it also has a huge section of weird books which a strange assortment of people come in and borrow. The books follows Clay and his attempts to figure out what is going on.

I really enjoyed reading this and zoomed through it, but I think that I wanted the explanation for everything to be a little bit more.. interesting? I don't know. Also the WOW TECHNOLOGY IS AMAZING theme annoyed me a bit. Enjoyable though! It is a first novel though, so I'm looking forward to reading the next one!





Shadow and Bone


This is the first book in what will be.. a trilogy, I expect, seeing as it's YA. The book is set in a place obviously heavily inspired by imperial Russia, and follows a girl called Alina. She is an orphan, who grew up with a boy called Mal, who she is love with (obviously) but who doesn't notice her (obviously). Ravka, the country they live in, has a whole group of people called Grisha, who have special magical powers. It is discovered that Alina has one of these powers (obviously) so she gets taken away to learn how to use it.Ravka is also disconnected from the rest of the world by the Shadow Fold, a dangerous area full of darkness and monsters, and it may just be that Alina's power can get rid of the shadow fold forever (obviously).

...As the above synopsis suggests, this follows a LOT of YA tropes, but it's well done, and I was ridiculously grateful that it managed to avoid some of the most annoying ones, and that the main character was likeable! I bought the second book immediately after finishing this one, so that shows how much I enjoyed it.

A word of warning - if you know anything about Russia the setting may annoy you (I've read several really annoyed reviews talking about how the names etc were wrong), but I don't really so it didn't bother me. But I can understand, as anything based on Japan or Britain that got loads of stuff wrong would annoy me too. If you're the kind of person who doesn't get annoyed by that kind of thing who also likes YA, I fully recommend it!


Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)



This book is basically a series of essays written by Mindy Kaling. They were entertaining, and I enjoyed it, but that's about all I have to say. I'm not a particularly girly girl, whereas Mindy Kaling is, so quite a lot of the time I found myself understanding her point of view, but not feeling that it really related to me that much. Not that that's a bad thing, particularly! It did make me want to just hang out with her for a while (although I'm not sure what we would have in common...)









Where'd You Go, Bernadette

I really REALLY enjoyed this, but all I would want to say about it has been said elsewhere, so go read that instead!
















Phew!
A few more posts and I might actually catch up!