Review: Death By Scrabble

Death By Scrabble by Charlie Fish
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a funny short story that took a couple minutes to read.

Thanks to the ladies that brought it to my attention; find it here: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-sto...

I liked it. It was funny, random, and I had no idea where it was going. So I enjoyed the ending.

Have fun, kids!

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Review: Geek Ink: The World's Smartest Tattoos for Rebels, Nerds, Scientists, and Intellectuals

Geek Ink: The World's Smartest Tattoos for Rebels, Nerds, Scientists, and Intellectuals by Emanuele Pagani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, this book is gorgeous. I love everything about it.

My single complaint is that I wanted MORE.

I liked that there was info on the artists, and while I wished there was more variety in the topics (lots of Star Wars and HP, not a huge amount of anything else particularly geeky) I really enjoyed just appreciating the details.

Some very clever work by some very talented artists. I did go through and look them all up on Instagram and sadly it seems some of the info in this book is outdated, but I still found most!

I'll definitely keep this one somewhere handy so I can look at it all the time. It's already given me inspiration for more tattoos! <3

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Review: House of Dragons

House of Dragons by Jessica Cluess
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was excited for it, and it did not disappoint.

Despite the fact that it wasn't at all what I thought it would be.

THE PLOT sees five outcasts (and their dragons) called to compete against one another in a set of trials, the outcome of which will decide the new emperor.

So since I love a good motley crew, let's start with who they are and how I feel about them!

EMILIA, aka THE LIAR
Emilia was an easy fave, because she's a book nerd who values knowledge above all else. She's been collecting information on the trials for years, and she's always the one to ask, 'why?' But she also has a deadly secret that will likely get her killed if it comes out. Which made me a bit sad, because it's a pretty epic secret. I really enjoyed her development, and the way she's insatiably curious about everything. But she's also willing to do what it takes to win, because she knows all the good she can do if she's chosen to rule.

LUCIAN, aka THE DREAMY ONE SOLDIER
Ah, Lucian. He's the warrior who doesn't want to be a warrior any more because killing innocent people did some major psychological damage. He's sworn to never pick up a sword again which can be damn inconvenient when all you need is a hero with a sword. Because he is 100% hero material. He's likable, cares about others, and just wants to do right by the world. Bless him. He's also got a soft spot for our girl Emilia and I am THERE for that beautiful friendship. He's constantly trying to be the sidekick when we all know he's the natural leader of this group of misfits.

VESPIR, aka THE SERVANT
Vespir has spent her life bowing to nobles, and now she's up against a bunch to become the most powerful person in the Empire. Thankfully she has a handy knowledge of all things dragon and a knack for getting all the gossip so she's still a contender. She's a bit cowed from years of being treated as worthless but she's not a doormat - she's got that little spark of fire that's just waiting to ignite. I like that she knows her chances are next to nothing, but she's still going to give it her everything anyway.

AJAX, aka THE THIEF
Now this is a kid who was dealt a rough hand. He's a runt from a rather large litter and is not much to look at, so naturally the boy has some major self esteem issues. He's looking at this competition as the chance he's waited for to finally make people notice him, and he's not above all kinds of devious deeds to get what he wants. He's a total weasel of a human being but he's also desperately lonely. His dragon is probably the best though so it all balances out. I enjoyed his sneakiness, and that he spends the entire book talking about how much he wants to be emperor. He's not ashamed of craving power, and I kinda liked that there was no blatant reformation for him - we just learn to love him for all of his weasel flaws. Not that I really loved him. Dude is a superficial jerk.

HYPERIA, aka THE MURDERER
Okay this girl is an ice cold queen. She's all about honour and tradition but she also has a really messed up idea of what constitutes honour. She's happy to murder her way to the throne because she's convinced she's the one destined to rule it. She was probably my favourite character in terms of how she was written, because there's so much to her. She's determined and focused and convinced that she's better than everyone else, but she's not proud. She doesn't let pride stop her from admitting her faults, and she's keen for a fair challenge. She's also a total feminist so even though she seems kinda evil it's hard not to root for her when she's standing up to scumbags who believe women are just toys for men to play and barter with. She's scary as hell and completely psycho, but she's got her own (albeit messed up) code that she's determined to stick to.

THE DRAGONS
Emilia's dragon, Chara, doesn't rate much; nor does Lucian's dragon, Tyche. They're there, but they're not really making themselves known. Whereas Karina, Vespir's dragon, is a tiny thing who is a brilliant flyer, thanks to the bond she shares with Vespir, and Hyperia's dragon, Aufidius is a complete psychopath just like his rider. But the true hero of the dragons is Dog.

Dog is a dragon who behaves like a dog, so he stole my heart pretty early on. Because Ajax was a runt in his family, they were getting pretty scarce on premium dragons so Dog is far from. But his heart is solid gold and he has so much love for Ajax that you just wanna hug him. He's playful and cheeky and everyone calls him dumb and stupid but its said with affection because how could you ever hate something so innocent? Dog is a hero among dragons, idiot or not.

THE TRIALS
I was definitely expecting bloody battles and epic chases and intriguing puzzles but this wasn't like that at all! But I wasn't disappointed, because the trials serve as the means for our characters to get to know one another better. Yes, they're all in it for themselves, but they're also good people at their cores and they're mostly doing it for the right reasons (except maybe Ajax). So there's not really a bloodthirsty element with them trying to destroy one another - they're all just trying to get the job done.

I think the hardest part of the trials was the ambiguity of the 'Great Dragon' who is allegedly in charge of the whole thing. He's represented by two disciples - a priest and priestess who seem cold, unfriendly, and a little like they're making things up as they go.

THE VIBE
I just really loved how this story unfolded. Yes, they're all misfits, but this story doesn't dwell on that, preferring to focus on their strengths and ambitions. You can tell there's a darkness lurking underneath the trials and that things are not quite right, so even while we happily enjoy the trials playing out, you know there's something epic in store. There's a puzzle here to work out, only we don't have any of the pieces yet.

It's quite brutal in places, but then it softens, so it's hard to get a proper read on the tone. It does feel quite dark overall but the characters are very real and so the mood feels real, too. There are light moments when they're smiling and laughing, but when violence comes it's rather nasty. I think I enjoyed the unpredictability of it - you never knew what was going to happen next.

Most of all, I loved the characterisation. These are not cardboard cut outs at all - they have their own hopes and fears and are quite clearly driven by them. They behave as their character dictates, but they are multi-faceted as well. I found them all very believable.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
This book promises dragons and it delivers dragons, but it also serves up five kids who have been thrust into an unexpected situation and are just trying to make the most of it. While there's a lot of fun to be had in this novel, it definitely feels like it's setting us up for some pretty epic action in books to come. But now that we've gotten to know these characters, I'm really looking forward to them coming into their own in the next book and delivering chaos, destruction and magic.

Fingers crossed!

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Review: The Breeding Season

The Breeding Season by Amanda Niehaus
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I think, if I actually understood appreciated literary fiction, this would have been a slightly higher rating. But I don't. Why does lit fic always involve making up new words and abandoning proper grammar and formatting? Why is that considered 'clever'?

Add to that, the story was weird and confusing for 3/4 of the book, and it's only the final quarter where things actually get kind of interesting and suddenly there's a decent story to get caught up in.

So, here's the deal: Elise and Dan have lost a child. The grief sees them dealing very differently - Elise throws herself into her weird science work that involves sussing the messed up breeding behaviours of some kind of rodent/marsupial (I think?) that I've never heard of before, while Dan gets caught up in the kinky art of his uncle, about whom he has been tasked to write.

Firstly, it's super confusing. It drifts straight from symbolism or simile into action without pause, so it's hard to work out what is memory, what is analogy, and what is actually happening for real. I don't know how much of what I think happened actually happened. Elise's animal fixations were also kind of confusing and I realise there was supposed be a lot of crafty, intelligent symbolism there somewhere but mostly it was a headache to work out what the point was.

Adding to the confusion of Elise's scientific studies is the art studies of Dan. He's focused on the art of his uncle, which is basically all female anatomy. There is a lot of mention of vulvas in this book, and a ridiculous focus on sex. I knew that 'breeding' would be a consideration of this novel, but it's more like an obsession, and I still didn't quite understand how it was all trying to connect. Not a book for the more conservative folk, I'm afraid.

There was just so much of this novel that I didn't get. As such, there was no warmth to it for me, there was no sympathy or any real emotion at all. I spent so much of this novel getting caught up on all the made-up words that it read more like nonsense than clever literature.

I wanted to feel more for Elise and Dan than I did, but they came across as such space cadets that I just wanted to slap them. I never really felt their grief or their pain. I certainly became more invested towards the end, but it still never grabbed my emotions.

I do think there was a story here that had potential. But it was trying so hard to be clever and unique and symbolic that it ended up making me feel more amused at its pretentiousness. I wish it had just been written plainly, with less 'cleverness' and more heart.

Likely to be loved by people who enjoy untangling symbolism, but the writing absolutely ruined this one for me.

With thanks to A&U for an ARC

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Review: The New Girl

The New Girl by S.L. Grey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ayyyy this book went full Downside.

This series messes with me so much. They're all standalone books but the experience is much more fulfilling when you read them in order. So taking that into consideration, this review may contain spoilers for the previous two books, The Mall and The Ward.

This book spoils us with three viewpoints: Ryan, Tara and Penter, with the latter giving us our very first glimpse into the mind of a Downsider. The blurb will make the uninitiated think this is about a pervert fascinated by the new girl at the school where he works, and a lonely woman who makes lifelike dolls and receives a rather strange commission. But those of us who know about the alternate world this series is based around will realise early on that there's something much more sinister happening.

The Downside plot has gone upside, with them making waves in our world this time. They're hiding in plain sight at a school this time, and their project involves something to do with children. But what is the connection to the strange baby-doll that has been requested of Tara? And exactly what is this fake family tasked to do?

I loved how much more information this unveiled about the Downside, yet I still long for more and more of this strange world. It's finally starting to become a clearer picture in this novel, but I feel like I will always have questions, and always want to know more. It was such a great experience reading the chapters from Penter's POV but it's still a puzzle to work out.

At the same time, this one was not quite as tense and puzzling as The Mall and not quite as horrifying as The Ward. There's a flicker of disgust at Ryan's perverted ways, and a clench of sympathy for Tara's twisted devotion to her lifelike dolls, but ultimately this feels more like a darker fantasy novel where the goal is just to provide more detail about the Downside. As such, it's more intriguing than horrifying.

While they can be considered standalone novels, I don't know that this one will be interesting to anyone but those like me who are thirsting for more knowledge of the Downside. Even then, I found myself hoping for more references or cameos from characters I'd met in the previous novels to properly tie it all together. But this is another section of their world again, so once again it's a foreign world that we know very little about. There's far more to learn here, though, and that was what I enjoyed most. I believe this is the last of the series and that makes me sad, because I still want to know so much more about it.

The story itself basks in the strangeness we have come to expect from this series, so if you're going in cold, prepare to be very, very confused. If you've read the previous novels, you won't get quite the same chills but you'll get a lot more information about this strange other world.

Not my favourite of the series for plot, but it felt like a fix I needed to feed my strange addiction to this world.

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Review: Change Your Thinking to Change Your Life

Change Your Thinking to Change Your Life by Kate James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of the information in this book I'm already familiar with, but it honestly didn't hurt to hear it again. It also served as fantastic confirmation that I'm finally on the right path.

Kate James is a psychologist and mindfulness coach and she brings her knowledge and personal experiences to this book to help you re-shape your thoughts in order to re-shape your life. There's a spiritual side to it - with its strong focus on meditation and mindfulness - but it also offers practical methods suggested by other respected experts. The general idea: if you can recognise negative thoughts and where they come from, you can learn to manipulate them so that they have a positive influence on all aspects of your life.

I really enjoyed the multi-faceted approach. This book provides multiple theories and exercises, so that even if some don't resonate there will still be something that does. Personally, I found Internal Family Systems (IFS) to be a little too wacky for me, but I really loved the information on 'fixed mindset' vs 'growth mindset'. There were a lot of things that resonated, and I enjoyed learning about them; and about myself through thinking about them.

I also particularly enjoyed doing the 'Strengths' test HERE and comparing results with my family and friends. If you decide to take it, please feel free to share your results and/or thoughts!

The 'workbook' format bothered me a little as I'm someone who likes to read uninterrupted, but I can definitely see the benefit to it. It does provide lines in the book so that you can jot down your answers and thoughts but it also recommends writing things down in a journal and I personally think that would be more beneficial. This is a book you should take your time with if you want to get the most out of it. Particularly Part One, which covers Connecting With Your True Self. You picked it up for a reason, right? So take your time and maximise the benefits.

I loved the practical element of it, and how there are plenty of questions you can challenge yourself with. A lot of it comes back to meditation, as this helps still the mind and allows you to connect deeper with your thoughts, but I think even if you're not a fan of meditation you can still get a lot out of just taking the time to think about your answers to the questions proposed. The author has done all the leg work in gathering information and strategies from notable experts - all we have to do is apply what works best.

This would be a great starting point for someone wanting to gain a better understanding of how our thoughts shape our lives. It's fairly easy to digest and the exercises are quite practical. At the same time, for those of us to whom this information is familiar, I believe it's still worthwhile having it reiterated. I believe working through the exercises properly will help weed out any lingering difficulties and bring more to the surface that we can work on. I may be familiar with the concept of questioning my thoughts but I'm certainly no expert at it, so it was helpful to go through the processes here and I'll likely go back to it repeatedly.

My advice? Start the year right by treating yourself to a beautiful, new, blank journal, get a copy of this book, and enjoy the process of getting to know yourself and your dreams a little better.

Releasing 27th Jan 2021. With thanks to Macmillan for my ARC

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2020 Reading Wrap - Up

What a massive year of reading 2020 was!

I don't think I'm alone in reading more than usual - extra time at home meant extra time for reading! Although I know many of us also experienced reading slumps along with extended lockdown periods. I found it was a lot harder to concentrate on reading at times.

All the same, I did manage to read 150 books all up, and completed the Dymocks 2020 Reading Challenge.

Here's the list:

✔Australian Author: Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte (AA) Review Here
✔Indigenous Author: Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina (AA) Review Here
✔From Top 101: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black Review Here
✔Kid's Top 51: Withering by Sea by Judith Rossell (AA) Review Here

✔Dymocks 'Book of the Month': House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas (March) Review Here
✔Re-read favourite book of all time: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien Review Here, Here and Here (updated from The Three Musketeers)

✔Friend's recommendation: Mao's Last Dancer by Cunxin Li (AA) Review Here
✔Featuring favourite country (France): Josephine's Garden by Stephanie Parkyn (AA) Review Here
✔From TBR pile: North Star Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier (AA) Review Here
✔Award winner: Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (AA) Review Here
✔Mystery/Thriller: One Last Child by Anni Taylor (AA) Review Here
✔Memoir: A Sceptic's Search for Meaning by Mike Willesee (AA) Review Here
✔Outside usual genre: Entranced by Nora Roberts Review Here
Short stories: A Gathering of Ghosts by David Haynes Review Here (updated from Saga Land)
✔Self Help/Motivation: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Review Here
✔Fairytale/Fable adaptation: Beauty in Thorns by Kate Forsyth (AA) Review Here
✔Book 1 in Fantasy series: Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan Review Here

✔Teaches something new: Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall Review Here (updated from The Power of Positive Thinking)

✔Adapted to film/TV series: You by Caroline Kepnes Review Here
✔Red cover: Cherry Pie by Leigh Redhead (AA) Review Here
✔Colour in title: Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin Review Here (updated from Beyond Black)

✔Read in a day: Weapon by Lynette Noni (AA) Review Here
✔About books: The Girl Who Reads on the Metro by Christine Feret-Fleury Review Here
✔Makes me laugh: Challenge Accepted by Celeste Barber (AA) Review Here
✔Published this year: Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (AA) Review Here
✔Said I've read but haven't: The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien Review Here (updated from Wuthering Heights) 

I only ended up switching out five titles which is pretty good for a notorious switcher! (What can I say? I'm a mood reader.) Still, I enjoyed challenging myself with some of the prompts. It also helped me get through some of the books that have been staring at me from my shelves for several years or more!

I had a lot of fun with my reviews as always and enjoyed interacting with others on Goodreads over both shared and opposing views. It's such a fantastic community for book lovers so I'm always grateful when people take the time to like and comment. 

I really did read a lot of incredible books last year, and even discovered some new favourite authors. 

Here's my Top Ten Reads of 2020:

1. The Inner Self by Hugh Mackay (AA)

2. City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

3. Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings (AA)

4. Kin by Kealan Patrick Burke

5. A Sceptic's Search for Meaning by Mike Willesee (AA)

6. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

7. Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

8. Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

9. Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller (AA)

10. Honeybee by Craig Silvey (AA)

I was also pleased to read so many fantastic Australian authors! We really are spoiled with talent here so I'm enjoying actively seeking to read more Aussie authors.

Overall, 2020 was a pretty successful reading year for me. :)

You can read my full breakdown of what I loved, hated, re-read, etc. and read a little more of my ravings on my Goodreads review of 2020. Find it HERE

Keep an eye out for my new reading list for the 2021 Dymocks Reading Challenge, coming soon!

Happy reading, friends!