One of the things I’ve been trying to do a lot of since starting this blog is check out other awesome book review blogs and get involved in some of the weekly challenges and prompts they use.
Today I’m going to be taking part in the Book Blogger Hop! This is currently active over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer and bloggers all over the sphere get involved to answer the prompt, visit some of the other responses, and make new connections!
This week’s prompt comes from Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews and they asked: “What authors do you always read or recommend?”
And my answer is: A few of them! I did a post a few months ago on my Auto-Buy Authors, but not all of them are what I would consider books that I recommend to “everyone.”
The authors off the top of my head that I find myself recommending the most often are– Jenny Lawson, Brene Brown, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Riley Sager. For SF/F lovers its Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs and Jay Kristoff.
Who’s your “go-to recommendation?” Leave a comment and recommendation for me below!
One of my favorite things as a reader, and a reviewer, is picking up a book that I’m skeptical about…and then being totally wrong. It’s the best.
That’s what happened for me with The Killing Gene, by E.M. Davey.
I was sent a request to review this by Duckworth publishing and am very excited to be participating in their #SummerReads tour for this book!
For more information on the tour, and to follow along, I’ll post a schedule at the end of this post that you can use.
And in the meantime, please enjoy my review of The Killing Gene by E.M. Davey.
When a young archaeologist goes missing in the Congo basin, Professor Randolph Harkness and troubled tearaway Ross McCartney go in search of her only to stumble upon a conspiracy to conceal ancient horrors lost to the passage of time.
Evading spies and trained killers, can they expose this cover-up in time or will they be buried with it? An unputdownable thriller The Killing Gene reveals the story of our species, the paradox of the modern mind and our innate predilection for murder…
I stumbled upon this book without knowing anything about it. And I enjoyed it a lot. The Killing Gene is a thrilling, fast-paced, well-researched piece of adventure fiction and it was a lot of fun to read.
The best thing about this book is hands-down the pace at which it carries itself. The writing is detailed, polished, and easy to read, carrying the plot with just the right amount of support. I kept reading almost compulsively. Because the chapters are short, every time I would finish one I would think to myself “It won’t take long to just read one more.” And then it was over somehow! That’s how they get you!
Moreover, this book was so well researched. I really felt that the author understood his subject matter the best that he could and that he translated that understanding to the audience well. Somewhat reminiscent of the feeling I get when reading Dan Brown’s books, The Killing Gene is rife with complex and fascinating theories that dip into history, culture, and science, among others. I feel like I learned some things while reading and I love getting that feeling from a book.
The plot was fun and unpredictable, and just “over the top” enough, in my opinion. I think that it uses the formula well, applying traditional choices when it made sense but then turning things on their heads at the next turn. This kind of writing kept the book interesting. I struggled with the Old Testament references, finding them a little heavy-handed, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the heart-stopping twists and turns on this adventure.
Finally, I enjoyed the characters in this book. Sometimes, with books like these in Historical Adventure, there is a tendency to place all knowledge, competency, and merit on the MC and not on the surrounding characters, or even cultures, that the book also talks about. I didn’t find this problem so much with The Killing Gene and it was a genuine breath of fresh air. Davey’s characters felt likable and relatable. I especially enjoyed McCartney and the complexity of writing a character with a life-changing diagnosis. He continually walked that line of endearing and reckless and I found that to be every entertaining, aware storytelling.
This book was so out of my normal reading comfort zone. I love adventure and thrillers and I used to read books like this ALL the time, but started getting away from the formula as I got older. This was one reason that I accepted the opportunity to review this book, I was excited to dive back into a known/unknown area of reading for a while! And guys, I wasn’t disappointed in the least. If you love the sound of adventure and running through the jungle and danger around every turn, this might be the book for you.
E.M. DAVEY is a journalist at Global Witness specializing in undercover investigative journalism into international corruption and environmental crime, which gives him the opportunity to travel to far-flung and unusual places. His novels incorporate real-world experiences and meticulous research, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. He has taught creative writing with the Wilbur & Niso Smith foundation and is the author of three novels: Foretold by Thunder (Duckworth 2015), The Napoleon Complex (Duckworth 2016) and The Killing Gene (Duckworth 2019). He grew up in Bristol and now lives in Kent.
Ohhh man, friends. It has been one hell of a week.
I’ve been meaning, but my schedule’s been lighter than usual. Between my birthday and being ill this week and some other unforeseen life hurdles I am exhausted.
But I’m here! Honestly it’ll be good for me to check in and take inventory on what I’ve been reading lately, and I want to hear from you too!
This is the Summer release that I’ve been waiting for! I hopped on this book on its recent release day and haven’t been disappointed. I’ve read almost all of Ruth Ware’s books and most of them have been really enjoyable. Turn of the Key is just what I wanted and expected from Ware’s signature mystery/thriller style: super eerie, scarily relatable, and a wild tangle of theories. I’m about halfway finished with this one and at the part I’m at now (“creeeaaak”) I can’t put it down. I’m sufficiently creeped and happy. I’ll report back when its finished!
I’m going to be writing a longer feature about this journey, but this was a turn-around for me! I read this the month it came out, a few years ago, and it was okay but…didn’t call to me further than that. And then it blew up to beloved proportions in the book community. So many of my book friends and fam have begged, cajoled, bargained, and needled me to try this one out again and…hell, I liked it. Was it perfect? No, but I liked it a lot more than the first time around, and I’m definitely going to try the sequel (which I’m assured is the best). Here’s to second chances!
In contrast to second chances, this is one of my all time favorite books. And what’s ironic about it being one of my favorites is that its also a war book. (Or…kinda.) Code Name Verity is a YA historical fiction novel that has one of the most beautiful, underrated, cry-worthy female friendships that I’ve ever read. I would recommend this book to anyone, adult or YA, because I think this one crosses that border so well. And, regardless, it is just such a beautiful, heart-breaking, worthy story. I don’t know how to properly express my love for this book, just trust me and add this one to your list.
This is the sequel to A Court of Thorns and Roses, above. Enough said. I think I’m going to start this one next but I’ve been in a mood-reading groove lately so we’ll see how I feel after I finish my current read. This looks good. I’m intrigued by the part of this world that we get to explore in the second volume and I hope that it pulls me deeper into the series. Fingers crossed!
I know next to nothing about this one, other than the fact that it has great reviews and that its an Adult Contemporary. My book club is reading this one this month and so I’m hopping on the train! I kind of like diving into books unknown every once in a while, so I’m looking forward to whatever surprises it has in store. Have you read this one?
Leave a comment and tell me what you’re reading this week!
“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of f*cking story.”
Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.
–
I take back anything I’ve said before, this book has been my biggest surprise of 2019.
I loved Daisy Jones & The Six. I can’t even describe how much I loved this book, its hands down one of my favorites of the year. I can’t stop telling people about it. Your turn!
This book is written like a great segment of VH1’s “Behind the Music,” so much so that I could visualize huge parts of it like I was watching it on a screen. I am absolutely crazy about the format, which I thought at first might be a struggle for me. Nope! The interview/stream of thought writing format is so compelling, in physical or audio form. I listened to the audio myself and I was blown away by how quickly I was swept up into this story. The full cast did a great job of really immersing you in their lives and story and if you have a chance I definitely recommend listening to this one.
I liked so much about this book. The characters were raw and real and flawed and gut-wrenchingly honest. And they evolved over time, which had a mesmerizing effect of shrinking years into an afternoon. I could have listened to hours and hours more of this novel and not even noticed it was long. Every single one of them, lead singer or bass, told a gritty and compelling story that I could not turn off.
Now, I don’t know about you but I wasn’t sure if Daisy Jones & The Six was a real band or not when I started this haha. I know, I know! But I hadn’t read anything by Taylor Jenkins Reid at that time (how?!) and the book was marketed so well as a “behind-the-scenes, groupie memoir” that I totally bought it. The funny thing is, as much as it is fiction, it felt so real and tangible to me that I almost kind of believe it again. That’s what kind of book it was.
This novel is beautiful from start to finish. I don’t know how to describe the feeling exactly, but there was something so incredibly beautiful about the shades and facets of humanity that this book shines a light on. Humor, love, betrayal, compromise, ugliness, self-sacrifice, determination, empowerment, music, I felt and related to so many human moments in this book that it felt less like a book and more like an experience.
I recommend Daisy Jones & The Six whole-heartedly and with enthusiasm. If I could I’d buy a copy for every person I love, even the ones who say that this wouldn’t be their type of book. Yeah, I once thought that too, and now I’m so glad that I took a step out of my usual reading zone and experienced this great story. You’re all in for one hell of a ride with this one, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
“Music can dig, you know? It can take a shovel to your chest and just start digging until you hit something.”
“Don’t count yourself out this early…you’re all sorts of things you don’t even know yet.”
Read and loved this book too?? Let me know in the comments!
I’m older! 29, to be specific. Almost 30, which doesn’t freak me out the way I feel like it’s supposed to. Yet.
I wasn’t planning on writing a post today but I ended up having the time and felt like blogging, so I went in search of something fun to do.
That’s where I found: The Birthday Book Tag!
This tag originated from Antonia @ Always Books and I found it after doing a very sophisticated web search for the words “birthday,” “book,” and “tag.” Why not?
Let’s do thiiiiiiis.
#1 | Birthday Cake:
A book with a plot that seems cliché but you adore it anyway.
This YA Fantasy series takes place in a country who’s Prince is looking for a bride. For 35 girls across the country, being “selected” is an incredible opportunity to live at the palace and compete for the Prince’s heart. These books follow our heroine, America, a reluctant entry into The Selection, as she undertakes this particularly fierce and surprisingly dangerous challenge.
This trilogy is exactly like cake: not a lot of substance but so much delicious sugar and all the calories and feelings you could want. I’ve read these more times than I care to admit haha.
What I really do love about this series though, despite what the synopsis may lead you to think, is the female friendships that develop over the series. So many feels. And yes, of course, the blossoming young romance and dramatic royal intrigue, I also love that too.
#2 | Party Guests
Your most anticipated book release for this year.
So I already did a post recently on my most anticipated reads of 2019, BUT. I do want to talk about one book in particular.
This book is a 2020 release (I HOPE) that I’ve been waiting on for- almost six years? It’s from one of my favorite authors, it’s the next addition in a series that I need more of dearly, and I’m so excited.
If you’re a Butcher fan and you’ve been waiting for as long as I have, no more! (Or…a little bit more.) Butcher posted the words “THE END” on his twitter just a couple of weeks ago and confirmed that he has finally finished writing the book. We should hopefully see a release date and cover soon!
This makes me as happy as that girl right there. ^^
#3 | Birthday Presents
A book that surprised you with how much you loved it.
This was an easy one too!
Hands down, 100%, blew me away, was not expecting it: Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
What. A. Book.
I do enjoy contemporary fiction, but I tend to most gravitate toward fiction that isn’t about just our mundane earth world. Not all the time, but this definitely happened with my expectations for Daisy Jones.
If you’re around the book community at all you have probably seen Daisy Jones talked about on booktube or on instagram or someone’s told you to read it (you should) and I saw all those things too, I just didn’t get the hype then. I’d never read anything of Reid’s before and it was a book about a band’s progression through their career in the 1970s and that just didn’t call to me. I put it on my TBR and expected to get around to it in a few years, like I usually do with uber-popular novels that don’t immediately fall into my hands or heart.
Dumbest thing I’ve done all year was put off reading this. I ended up coming around to it just last month because my book club chose it for our Book of The Month and just…damn. I listened to the audio, which I highly recommend, and I couldn’t turn it off. All day long I’d pause it to get something else done and then end up turning it right back on again. I almost wish I hadn’t finished it so fast, but I couldn’t help myself.
Occasionally, as readers, we get to enjoy the unique and delicious pleasure of being so wrong about a book we come to love. This was definitely one of those moments for me.
(I think this review is also scheduled for Monday? Keep an eye out!)
#4 | Happy Birthday Song
A book that certainly deserved all of the hype that it got.
Oh man, I might have to go back to Taylor Jenkins Reid on this one. RIGHT after I finished Daisy Jones and The Six, I rushed to the library and got my hands on her other hugely-hyped novel that I had yet to read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. …And now I’m a hardcore Taylor Jenkins Reid fan. They were both spectacular, maybe my best books of the year so far.
In the interest of sharing the love though, I’m gonna spotlight another duo of novels that totally deserves all the attention and hype they (still) get: Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo.
I know, I know, I know, the book community are sick of hearing about these BUT- in the interest of fairness, it is my birthday and I can do what I want. *AHEM*
Maybe I’m feeling sentimental because of the new Crooked Kingdom Collector’s Edition (hint hint, to any present buyers lol) being announced recently, but I’ve been thinking about how much I love this duology a lot. I might need to reread it soon. Maybe a blog buddy read?
Six of Crows is essentially a heist story, except that it’s also set in a fantasy world (the same world as The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, if you’re familiar). Calling it a “heist book” is really a disservice but I’m not sure how else to describe the general plot, cause that’s what it is. What is really is though, underneath, is a dark, complex, slow burn, character-driven, emotional work of YA fiction.
Crooked Kingdom is the sequel to Six of Crows but I hesitate to say much more about it or its plot, to avoid some particularly good spoilers. Needless to say that I still to this day cannot decide if I liked it “as much as Six of Crows” or more.
I didn’t hate or love Bardugo’s first series, so when I read these I was so surprised and elated and knew immediately that I would follow these characters to the end. I felt so attached to the whole and flawed and beautiful humans in this book, and in a way that I haven’t experienced very often since I was a young reader. I love these characters so much and their victories and struggles absolutely become your own when you read these books. Its stuck with me to this day.
Have I talked enough about these yet? Okay.
#5 | Happy Music
A book with some very beautiful and truly memorable quotes.
Ooh this is a hard one!!
I’ve read so many books with quotes that I love that there are so many to pick from. And then some of my favorite quotes come from books that aren’t quoteable as a whole. Hmmm. How to choose?!?
I thought about Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I thought about The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I also thought about The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. I treasure all of these books, but especially for their words in this case.
I really love this book. I know its polarizing, people seem to either really get it or really don’t get it, but it’s special to me. This simple, little story is about following our dreams and realizing that our destiny is bigger than the limits we put on ourselves. Its about following the path that is truly ours and coming to understand our place in the universe (or God, or whatever you believe is bigger than we are). I come back to this story a lot.
Here are some of my favorites:
“You will never be able to escape from your heart, so it’s better to listen to what it has to say.”
“And, when you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward.”
“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”
“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the soul of the world, and one day it will return there.”
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever truly suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”
“Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.”
“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.“
#6 | Getting Older
A book that you read a long time ago, but you think you would appreciate more if you read it as a more mature reader.
Ha, I feel like there are a ton of possible answers to this one, for sure.
But when I really sat down and thought about which one to highlight, I kept coming back to something I actually reread recently: The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.
That might be a trite or a common answer, I don’t know, but I also found it to be true. I loved Harry Potter when I first started reading the books at age 11, I loved Harry Potter when I finished the series for the first time at 18, and I love it now that I’m an adult. Honestly, it’s almost difficult to talk about all the things that HP makes me feel because of the many, many layers of love and memories, from so many different times in my life. Its almost too much.
What I noticed reading through it again as an adult though was this: the true darkness, complexity, and weight of everything those characters deal with was not something I could wrap my head around at 11. I thought I got it all at 18, but even then I don’t think I really grasped some of the deeper, emotional components that come from experience. There were moments during my reread that truly reached out and touched something in me that made me stop. I think there’s something about being an adult, after you’ve felt so many of the complicated, mixed, and heavy feelings that come with being mature, that gives over a new perspective to our sense of empathy. I felt the books so intensely this time around. Maybe that’s because it had been a long time, maybe because I was older and savored every word and feeling, maybe both. Not sure. But I think the emotional heart of this story is very multi-layered for different ages.
#7 | Sweet Birthday Memories
A book that made you incredibly happy during a sad or demanding period of your life.
This was a tough question also!
Books are my number one companions when I’m down and I tend to withdraw into stories when things are especially tough, so I feel like I could name so many.
I’ll call out a few, in the order in which they entered my life:
I have gotten lost in all of these pages for a day or a few and they have each been so generous and comforting to me. I literally can’t count all the times I have picked up one of these books hoping that it would sweep me away and I’ve never been let down.
Oh man! This book tag was awesome and had some hard questions, I seriously struggled with a few, but we did it! I wasn’t planning on writing a big post today but hey, this was fun. Thanks for spending my birthday with me! See you on Monday! x — A
One of the things I’ve been trying to do a lot of since starting this blog is check out other awesome book review blogs and get involved in some of the weekly challenges and prompts they use.
Today I’m going to be taking part in the Book Blogger Hop! This is currently active over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer and bloggers all over the sphere get involved to answer the prompt, visit some of the other responses, and make new connections!
This week’s prompt comes from Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer and they asked: “Do you own more than one copy of a book?”
And my answer is: Oh hell, yeah. But only a special few haha.
Listen, I would love to collect every cover of every book I love. But If I did that, moving from one apartment to another would be an insane feat of humanity that I would never want to undertake again. So, for a while, I’m being smart with which books I purchase physically. Or…I’m trying my very best to be.
With that said, there are a few books that I do own multiple copies of and most of them are beloved favorites.
I own two copies of my favorite fantasy series, The Dresden Files, hardback and paperback. That wasn’t on purpose but just happened naturally over the years and years that I’ve read that series. I used to annotate my paperbacks too, so it’s fun to have one copy that’s been marked over and over and another that’s clean and fresh.
I also own multiple (many) copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These were my first and favorite fantasy stories and I love them and Middle-Earth so much, so yeah. I’m that lady with 18 editions of the hobbit in her living room haha. Literally. (Though I haven’t counted.) I love collecting these in multiple languages and covers, especially through gifts or thrifting. It’s been fun to collect them all.
I’m sure there are a few scattered others but these are the big ones.
What about you? Do you own multiple copies of books you love?
Story-eyed Reviews 