Friday 23 January 2015

My Heart and Other Black Holes By Jasmine Warga



My Heart and Other Black Holes is the story of Aysel, a teenage girl who is haunted by the actions of her father’s violent crime. She feels very much alone in the world and wants to commit suicide, but she doesn’t want to do it alone. After discovering a website that helps people find a suicide partner in their area, Aysel meets FrozenRobot, or rather, Roman. But, as the date looms for their intended suicide day, Aysel begins to question whether or not she wants to go through with it anymore.

The description of this novel may not sound very happy, but in fact it’s a book full of hope. As Aysel and Roman start to help each other find happiness in life again, you become filled with a huge hope that they will fill each other with enough hope that the future can be better, and subsequently won’t go through with their plan. It becomes almost impossible to put down the book as you need to find out whether or not their plan comes to fruition.

Warga’s portrayal of both Aysel’s and Roman’s depression and need for suicide is truly impressive writing. She shows it isn’t glamorous and it’s not beautiful. For any teenagers suffering from depression, this book is so helpful, its realistic and truthful and I think could be the start of something great and fresh in terms of dealing with mental illness, especially in teenagers. It’s not cheesy or overly dramatic, which sometimes contemporary books can be, I love The Fault in Our Stars, but we don’t all use cigarettes for a metaphor or talk about hamartia’s. It’s full of teenage wit and snark and also a little humour, so it’s extremely easy to relate and fall straight into.

For adults it’d really help to understand their child’s depression or whether or not they have depression.
 
My Heart and Other Black Holes really shows that we all need someone to talk to. We can isolate ourselves with all the worst parts of ourselves, our guilt and shame. All we really need is someone who understands us, can see the better parts in ourselves and remind you of them and help you carry the burdens you have. Roman and Aysel remind each other that they’re good people and have much potential in life.

Aysel and Roman are two unforgettable characters. They’re so well written, both teenagers and yet so in need of help. They’re messy and REAL. You fall in love with them and the idea of them together, immediately you can see they’re a wonderful match for each other and can help each other like no one else can. As even Roman himself says: They have chemistry.

You will laugh at this book. You will cry. It will give you a much better understanding of depression and so much hope. It lets you know if you ever have depression, there will always be someone out there to help you, you just need to seek out help.

Warga is fearless in her debut and I am so glad she is. Everything down to its pacing is perfect. She has immediately become one of my favourite authors, she seems destines for great things.


5 Stars. 

Thursday 15 January 2015

A Love Letter to Sarah J Mass and ACOTOR giveaway!




Click the link below to read a VERY heartfelt and VERY true love letter to Sarah J Maas...and also you can enter to win a A Court of Thorns and Roses! International! What are you waiting for?!

http://www.themidnightgarden.net/2015/01/love-letter-sarah-j-maas.html#comment-554136

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon--Official Trailer

The Mime Order Trailer!


WOAAHHHHHHHHHHHH



I cant wait for this book to come out so we can all freak out over how amazingly awesome it is!



The hunt is on.

Have you seen Paige?





The Falling Kingdoms series- Books 1, 2 and 3


The Falling Kingdoms series is essentially a YA Game of Thrones, so once the advertising for a YA book is correct! Usually when books have a ‘If you like this…you’ll love this.’ sticker, the book its compared too is nothing like the new release but was a popular book. For example Throne of Glass had a sticker that read ‘You you loved The Hunger Games, you’ll love this!’ but in my opinion the Dystopian Hunger Games couldn’t be further from the High Fantasy Throne of Glass.
However, Falling Kingdoms has many different points of view from all over the continent and they all interlink with each other in the storyline. It is full of intrigue, betrayal, lies and love (even some mistaken incestuous desire) just like Game of Thrones, but containing less explicit content.
 
The first book starts off with two of the countries of Mytica deciding to usurp the king of one of the other country Auranos. Everything that occurs after is the fallout from this move. Its interesting to read the points of view from different sides of this war, as as the books progress the character(s) you’d want on the throne become numerous and characters you previously might’ve hated, start to grow on you.

The characters are all very individual and very flawed and as there are a lot of them, when trying to explain how much they need to read this book its hard to coherently describe the links and all of the characters. When reading the book it’s a little strange attempting to slip into  this strange world straight away that has many characters in many place, but over time, you stop needing the (very helpful) character list at the front and can just enjoy the story.

I’ve never been so undecided about love interests in a book. Usually I read some interaction between two characters and latch on, unyieldingly. In the first book I had a clear OTP (one true pair) that continued into the second but everyone seems to kiss everyone at some point and Morgan constantly makes you question where the characters heart lies. So by the end of the third book, I don’t know where my heart lies, or the heart of the characters.

Falling Kingdoms contains magic, but a unique one and also the mysterious Watchers, who do what their name suggest, watch over the mortals of the world, but they clearly have a bigger role which is only just beginning to be unravelled in the third book after many little hints and appearances. It appears they’ve had much to do with Mytica’s goings on, acting like Gods, which is very interesting to have these God-like being interacting with the mortals.

Morgan isn’t afraid to kill off characters too, constantly keeping you on edge and praying for the safety of your favourites.
Also, her writing style is so easy and smooth to read, making the books quick reads.  I read each of these books in one sitting because you just get pulled in and once you’re in Mytica, youre there until the book ends, its just SO addicting!
The series has a planned 6 books and there will also be a spin-off series, so there should be much more great stories coming from this world!


Id give the series a 4 out of 5 stars.

Tuesday 6 January 2015



NOT DEAD

Ohhh maaan i miss this blog, i haven't posted in absolutely FOREVER.
I promise im not dead. 
I miss book reviewing and constant reading! 
 The reason for no reviews are:

  • College mock exams (SO MANY TEARS) so i have been endlessly revising!
  • UNIVERSITY- i am applying to 4 drama ones ( RCS, Guildhall, LAMDA and RADA- Some amazing actors come from these schools) as well as 5 english lit course so ive moslty been working so damn hard to learn monologues and perfect them, its so competitive and hard i just wanna cry all the time.
  • Work- i am a sales assistant at WHSmith.
  • Family- well, i dont really wanna bore you with family stuff but my grandmother has Alzheimer's and its just the worst.

I really hope ill be able to get back on here soon. 
Goodbye for now!