Why I'm All For Paperbacks!

Hello,

I've had this post idea for a while and in that time I have started to edge slightly towards hardcovers. Only slightly. It think it's because the corners don't bend as easily in my rucksack. Isn't that annoying? Anyway, I am still a paperback fan and these are my reasons why:

Lighter to carry

So you know I carry my books in my bag. That's not the only thing in my bag. I normally have folders and a huge bottle of water and it's just a delight to know that I can carry a book too without a lot more extra weight. And I always have a book with me.

No dust-jackets

This is my number one pet-peeve about hardcovers. The book bends one way and the dust-jacket goes the other, plus it slips. All. The. Time. (I normally end up just putting the dust-jacket aside until the book goes back onto the shelf once read). On the other hand, you've got your naked paper back. That's right, it's naked. It doesn't need to wear a jacket. It wears it's real cover out in the open for all eyes to see. What a beauty. 

I have a little story about dust-jackets on books. Have you heard of the Gone series by Michael Grant? Well, my copy of Plague was a hardcover and came with a dust-jacket. Yes, very nice and sophisticated. I take the dust-jacket off and the cover is upside down. Okay, okay, maybe the jacket was just on the wrong way, right? Right? No. The pages were the other way up from the cover! What?! Each time I read the book without the jacket it looked like I was reading it upside down!

Reading Positions

Drawing by Quentin Blake, from Matilda by Roald Dahl

Hello,

This is a bit of a list/discussion post. We all know how hard it is to find the perfect reading position and be able to maintain it for however long it takes us to put the book in question down. Seriously, it's near impossible. You lay down in bed with your reading companion in hand, and five minutes later you're tossing and turning all over the place to get comfortable again!

This post is inspired by the illustrations by Quentin Blake in my favourite childhood book, Matilda by Roald Dahl. Leave me a comment below if you also adored this as a child.

1. The laying-in-bed style

Ohhhh yeah! That classic reading before sleeping position. Sounds like heaven. That is, until your arms hurt! Try laying on your side and half your face gets squished and you can't see one side of the book (even worse if you wear glasses and end up with half a skull of agony!). We've all been there, haven't we? Like every single night until our eyelids force themselves shut.

From Matilda

2. The sitting-in-the-armchair/sofa style

We do sometimes venture out of the comfort of our little nests (bedrooms) to read. The television sometimes come on as we are definitely certain that we can multi-task. Yes, fab. Totally works... nope. Our legs are usually curled up underneath us while we devour about a hundred pages because, let's face it, this reading position means business! You don't go into this kind of reading-position without a trusty cup of tea and some kind of fuel a.k.a. snacks and plenty of them.

Book Review: Cleo

Author: Lucy Coats

Rating: 2/5

Publication date: May 7th 2015

I was so looking forward to this and was extremely disappointed. I've never read historical Egyptian fiction before so my mind was completely open to the idea of it. Cleo is a modern twist on this and I will definitely not be basing my idea of the genre off of this one novel.

"Her precious mother is dead - and it isn't an accident! The young Cleopatra - Pharaoh's illegitimate daughter - must flee the royal palace at Alexandria or die too. As her evil half-sisters usurp the throne, Cleo finds sanctuary at the sacred temple of Isis, where years later she becomes initiated into the secret Sisters of the Living Knot. But now Isis's power is failing, Egypt is in danger, and Cleo must prove her loyalty to her goddess by returning to the Alexandria she hates. She must seek out the hidden map which is the key to returning Isis's power - on pain of death. But will she be able to evade her horrible sisters? And will she find dreamy Khai, the über-hot Librarian boy she met as she fled Alexandria years before? Cleo's powerful destiny is about to unfold..." (From Goodreads)

I found the plot incredibly anti-climatic. There's this initiation type thing concerning the character Cleo and the Goddess Isis. Now, it was set up in a very you either live or die way and yet the result was kind of brushed off as if it wasn't much of a big deal. It should have been a big deal!

I also struggled to connect with Cleo as a narrator. I found myself wanting her friend Charm to join the scene to make my reading experience slightly more enjoyable. I don't know whether it was because the voice of Cleopatra was used in a teen character or something else that makes me dislike Cleo. I just don't know. She was difficult to sympathise with. In the story she suffers from the loss of people she loves but somehow forgets about them quite easily.

This book is the first in a planned trilogy and is the ending quite obviously sets up for this as there is no real concluding chapter. I think there is potential for the next books to be more engaging than this one but I can't see myself reading them.

Overall, I liked the ideas behind the story but, for me, it just didn't work.

Thank you for reading!

Book Review: All I Know Now

Author: Carrie Hope Fletcher
Rating: 5/5


Blimey! This is such a fantastic read! While reading I felt like I was genuinely sitting down with Carrie, having a cup of tea and a chat about the ups and downs of life with a bunch of comical anecdotes tagged on.

All I Know Now is a manual for those in the 'Teen Age' who need an Honorary Big Sister to help guide them through life based on said sister's experiences. The sister, in this case, being Carrie.

The book itself is split into eight acts, each of which are based on a particular subject such as the Internet and Turning That Frown Upside Down. I thought this made the book extra fun compared to the standard chapter-per-subject idea. (It's also rather fitting considering that Carrie is Eponine of Les Mierables.)

The thing I loved about this was that it didn't feel like some flawless pro-at-life was dictating how to go about being a person. Carrie's filled this with anecdotes from her not perfect but incredibly amusing Teen Age and reflected on how she sees herself now. That's it. She is giving advice to her younger self that may help you. She doesn't sit down and say 'right, here's what I think and you better jolly well do this'. She simply explains how she thinks positivity helps and gives ideas based on her own experiences.

My Current TBR Pile (April 2015)

My TBR pile is beginning to dwindle as it feels like forever since I last bought any new books. Some of the books I have to read are ones I've owned forever but just haven't gotten around to reading yet because other, more exciting, books fall into my hands.

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Confession: I haven't read this before. I know, I know. I should have read it by now, but I just haven't. While we're here, I'm also going to admit to not having read any Jane Austen novels yet either. And swiftly moving on...

2. Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I picked this up at the beginning of the year because my friend was reading it and suggested it to me. It involves a scavenger hunt surrounding books from what I can tell from the synopsis, plus a love story.

3. Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

I read the first two Hush Hush books last year but decided to take a slight break from them to read other things. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the series - because I did. I enjoyed it a lot. I just wanted to read other things before returning to these books.

Book Review: Bomb

Author: Sarah Mussi
Rating: 3/5
Publication date: May 7th 2015

When Genesis goes on an internet date she is only anxious that this latest guy won't be 'The One'. She's not at all worried about meeting a dodgy bloke or getting in too deep. And when her date appears she texts her best mate, Jackson, to let him know that she thinks this time, he just might be 'The One'. And he texts her back with a huge: I LIKE.
It's the one all right. But not in the way she expects.
For when Genesis wakes up the next day, she can't remember a thing. She can't remember where she is, or how she got there. And she can hardly move because she is strapped into some kind of body armour ... and then a voice sounds in her head: 'Get on to the 37 going north. You are strapped to a vest made entirely of explosives. At the push of one button I can detonate you right where you stand.'
To her horror, Genesis has become an agent of mass destruction. The countdown to detonation begins now... (taken from Goodreads).

I received Bomb through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and I think it may have been a draft edition due to my copy being 100 pages over what is stated on Goodreads. I'm hoping that this condensed version is a lot more gripping than what I read. I felt that some parts were extremely gripping but the whole novel lacked this on a whole. Some chapters were very much there purely for transition. 

Liebster Award Nomination!

This a bit of a personal, get-to-know-me kind of post. Recently Found Some Paper did a similar post and tagged me to answer some questions of her own (ah, exciting!). You can click here if you want to have a little browse through her post. 

So, here are the questions I have been asked by Uli.

1. What’s your favourite movie of all time?
Is it bad that I don't have an answer to this? My movie-favourite is changing constantly. I think I love a film until I watch another film and instantly have the urge to persuade everyone and anyone into watching it! Just give me all the movies and all the time to watch them! But if I have to pick just one I'll go for Matilda (sorry other favourite films). Matilda is a film I've loved watching since around the age of nine. I read the book countless times as a child and it was probably my favourite childhood story of all time, too. I remember watching the film one time when I was home from school feeling ill and watching the Bruce Bogtrotter cake eating scene really didn't help - it's safe to say I didn't watch it for a while after that.