Every Day by David Levithan

You have to read this book.

I enjoyed Will Grayson, Will Grayson but oh sweet love of all that is pure this book makes Will Grayson, Will Grayson like quotes from one of those "teen truth" twitter accounts.

A spends his life going from one body to another when one day he meets Rhiannon and goes out of his way to meet her every day in his different bodies.

And oh it's so good! A is instantly likeable because he constantly tries not to make his inhabitants lives worse. Rhiannon is idolised by A and the obsession over her is so beautifully perfect and well written that it can't be described in writing. Then there's a second sub-plot over the Church's attitude to "demons" and religious experience so it isn't all about the idolisation of this one girl which is so wonderful after YA and adult romance (Marion Keys, I'm looking at you and your kind).

Often teen (is it teen? It could be adult literature?) romantic fiction such as this narrated by a guy includes manic pixie-girl dreams *cough John Green cough* and Every Day was refreshingly pure of this. Rhiannon is so full of love and hope that it's nice to have such a lovely character.

This books main criticism is it is a bit preachy. By that I mean Levithan tried to get his views across over many topics in society. I didn't find that; I loved every second. I liked the way it tackled more than one problem in our culture and yet it was a brilliant love story.

I loved the romance of it all.

So yes, this is my favourite book I've read all year. Maybe even one of my top 20 books of all time.


So yeah, you have to read this book.


Links: http://www.bookdepository.com/Every-Day-David-Levithan/9780449815533/?a_aid=SophieCharlotte

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13262783-every-day

How many have you read?

The BBC published this list of books and apparently most people have only read 6.

I (Sophie, if you haven't worked that out yet) have read 20 and I was thinking of reading them all but I've learned Bible quotes for RS and it's a bit heavy going.

If you're interested in what I thought about them, I've put star rating by the sides of them or look at my goodreads though I read some of them such a long time ago I was sort of guessing. OH THE ACCURACY.

By the way, no. 59 will always remain one of my favourite books though. I will revue it in the near future.

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (****)

2. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series, JK Rowling (*****)

5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (**)

10. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

11. Little Women, Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

13. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger (****)

19. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch, George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald (***)

23. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (**)

31. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis

34. Emma, Jane Austen

35. Persuasion, Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, CS Lewis (***)

37. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (****)

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières

39. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (****) 

41. Animal Farm, George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving

45. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery (***)

47. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies, William Golding

50. Atonement, Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi, Yann Martel

52. Dune, Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon (*****)

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (***)

62. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (****)

65. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (**)

69. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick, Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

72. Dracula, Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (***)

74. Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses, James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath (****)

77. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal, Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession, AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple, Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte’s Web, EB White (****)

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom (***)

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection, Enid Blyton (**)

91. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks

94. Watership Down, Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet, William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (***)

100. Les Misérebles, Victor Hugo.

20% HIGHSCORE

How many have you read?

To buy any of these books: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/?a_aid=SophieCharlotte

The Road vs. I am Legend

I am Legend and the Road are both post-apocalyptic fiction and both are so different that I can't really portray it in writing.

I did have a favourite. A very clear favourite. I may show signs of bias in the review due to the fact I do prefer one of them, but reviews are factories where facts go in and little packets of bias come out.

I am Legend is a book where everyone has been destroyed by an illness and come back as a vampire (apparently it's very early vampire fiction and trust me it's not Twilight). The Road is about a father and son travelling to the sea in a world where we've run out of oil. And oh my is it depressing.

I am Legend is something I enjoyed reading.  Nothing much happens, I find, in post-apocalyptic fiction because books are about people and relationships, and the characters are the only ones who aren't dead. But Matheson deals with that quite well, with the vampires and all that.

The main plot is where the Robert Neville, the protagonist, tries to find a cure to the disease and spends time researching this. However, Neville gets drunk a lot of the book and is alone the rest of the time because of the trauma he went through which becomes clear through out the novel. I found the pacing a little too quick towards the end when things start to happen which I thought was a shame because overall the book is really quite good and really well pulled off.

The Road, however, is a massive juxtaposition compared to the glamourous world of the vampire. It's the most depressing book I have ever read. There are a lot of positive things about this novel. The writing style is ever so clever. There are no speech marks in the novel as there are only really two characters so if one person isn't talking the other person would be. The speech is very monosyllabic and simple and then the next sentence will be a Fitzgerald-like complicated sentence.

But the "good guys" thing was shocking, harrowing and utterly haunting. The Road is one of those books that you read but stays with you for a really long time afterwards. It's brilliantly written but it's so depressing I wouldn't recommend it. I'm sorry.

I am Legend trumps The Road. By a long way. The Road is just so depressing as a novel and I am Legend is quite enjoyable, but they're not my favourite books of the haul. Both are brilliantly written but easy to read which is unusual. If you want a beautifully written book, I'd recommend either.

I am Legend Links:

Book Depository Link: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/I-Am-Legend-Richard-Matheson/9780575079007?a_aid=SophieCharlotte

Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14064.I_Am_Legend

The Road links:

Book Depository Link: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/9780330447546?a_aid=SophieCharlotte

Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road

Exams!

Okay, I know we need to do more reviews, me specifically. I promise once exams are over I will but for now it's just not possible!
Maiyaxx

Across the Universe Review

I imagined the outrage on my reader's faces as they read my review. "What?" They would cry in anger, the true science fiction fans of this world. "Why did she not read a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? Why would you pick young adult science fiction in the grand scheme of this bountiful genre?"

Needless to say I deleted my first draft.

I was a science fiction v**g*n before I read this book.

The book has two protagonists: Amy and Elder. A space ship is being sent to a new planet so humans can inhabit it. Amy is a human from modern day Earth and has been cryogenically frozen with her parents to be woken on the new planet. However, 50 years early she is woken in an attemped murder and has to learn to inhabit a new society where she sticks out, mentally and physically knowing she won't see her parents for another 50 years. Elder is the future leader of the ship, when he will become Eldest, the leader. He has to learn how to govern the people on the ship and how not to repeat the mistakes made on Earth.

The book is quite political for YA, there's quite a lot about how our society and its flaws and how it would be viewed from another perspective (side note: this specifically strikes a chord with revision-crazy-Sophie as I am having many "what is the point of society/exams" thoughts). There is also a lot about genetic mutation and the information we are fed by the government and how it influences our opinion. I was rejoicing at the fact that maybe YA had a deeper meaning that wasn't necessarily about the beauty of Edward Cullens glittering urethra (I urge you not to google that).

The characters were pretty good, none of them particularly stood out, there was one I wanted to talk to you about but I've forgotten his name. You see? No attachment. Whatsoever. Even though this one scene was supposed to be really emotional because of he strong imagery and... oh Beth. Beth. Step it up.

The main thing I liked about this book was you read a bit, got comfortable with everything that was happening and then BAM plot twist. It made it really fast moving which was lovely compared to all the other books in the haul so far. Revis is a great story teller and that totally makes uo for any other flaws I didn't love.  

The ending was quite similar in style to the Magicians, if you've read that, without the gore. 

I really enjoyed this book and the cover is gorgeous.  It includes a blue print to the space ship.

I want to buy this: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Across-Universe-Beth-Revis/9780141333663?a_aid=SophieCharlotte

I want to add this to Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8235178-across-the-universe

Ketchup Clouds Review

I found out about this book through the pre-roll advertisment on youtube (you know, the unskipable ones before videos). Now, youtube knows how old I am, to the day. It knows my interests, my hobbies so it recommended this book. So why did Annabel Pitcher's marketing team believe I was her target market?

Sure, I bought it. I write a blog so she gets even more media attention. But am I likely to recommend a children's book to another year 11? Probably not.

Now, on the very small chance you have kids, because dear parent I am well aware you are not my demographic, I won't recommend it to you either. It has themes of murder, s*x, divorce (doesn't sound dark but it's dark to a child), money worries, s*xual abuse etc. Minefield of nightmares and awkward conversations waiting to happen.

Now I have had yet another rant about advertising (I have them all the time) let me review the book.

Ketchup Clouds is about "Zoe," a girl who holds a terrible guilt about an event that happened in the past. As a result she writes to a man on death row called Mr S Harris because she feels that he will understand her guilt. The plot was really strong in some places as you knew what was going to happen but not to which character. However, there was a bit of a YA Twilight love triangle and it was a bit tiresome because it was so infeasible and one of the characters was so unrealistic.

I think the characters could have been developed more, the only development that occurs is Zoe's affection for Mr Harris. The family were, I think, supposed to be relatable to everyday families but I haven't had any of those scenarios so I found myself disconnected from the family life.

The boys were two very different characters, one I really disliked and one I found too perfect. You'll know which one is which if you read it. It was a sweet concept, but it was just too YA novel "a 17 year old boy fancies the 15 year old girl."

Why didn't I hate this book with it's terrible love story and pathetic character development? Is it because I've gone revision crazy?

Maybe.

It's mainly because the writing style was really good, though very simplistic. Annabel Pitcher is very gripping and the overall plotline and not the "who done it" but "who died" was done fantastically. I mean really really well. It would be the reason to buy the book. The tension was built up brilliantly.

Hardback link: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Ketchup-Clouds-Annabel-Pitcher/9781780620305a_aid=SophieCharlotte

I would hold out for the paperback though because the cover is gorgeous. It adds so much more to the book.

Link: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Ketchup-Clouds-Annabel-Pitcher/9781780620312?a_aid=SophieCharlotte

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11088150-ketchup-clouds

I gave it 3 stars because it's quick and easy and some bits are well done, but in 5 years time it will sit alone because it doesn't fit anywhere, a mingle of terrible YA, inappropriate children's literature and adults who won't care.

Unbroken (Cedar Cove #1) - Melody grace

Sorry if I was harsh :)
Melody Grace is a fairly unknown writer. She has only released one book so far which is Unbroken.
Unbroken (Cedar cove #1): This is just an outline of the book.
(summary from Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17342189-unbroken)
POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!
Unbroken is the story of Juliet and Emerson. It is set after their summer of love 4 years ago in which Emerson broke Juliet's heart, which was already damaged. 
In present day Juliet has moved on and is currently attending University in the city, and is planning a life with her boyfriend of 2 years. But she "must" go back to Cedar Cove to clear out her families beach house because her Dad needs to sell it because he is out of cash. 

I had high expectations for this book. It looked like a really good book, still your typical romance but it seemed like it would be more interesting that there would be a lot substance to the book. But in all truth although I quite liked it, it lacked substance.

Negatives:
First of all there were a lot of exclamation marks!!!! In my head that made is sound like the characters were shouting all the time. They didn't affect the book too much but they were a bit irritating. Also I thought the character lacked emotion, it was a very physical relationship between Emerson and Juliet, one which didn't really involve much more than that. Although she said "I love you" a bit, I never really got the sense that she truly did. Also it said that Emerson fought for her. There  was none of that unless you count punching someone in the face then being a jerk towards Juliet as fighting for her. Most of the book he just tries to get rid of her.
Also there were quite a few unnecessary characters such as her sister and Emerson sister, they didn't add anything to the book.
Positives:
I liked the fact that the reason Emerson pushed Juliet away was because her mum before she died wrote him a letter explaining that if he loved her he let her go. I also liked the idea of there being two types of love. It was something that I hadn't read about, although it was part of the book I think she could've focused more on that. I liked the pace of the book, it was an easy read. Although it sounds like there were a lot of negatives that is more because I expected more from it. But on a whole I finished the book and enjoyed the read. In truth I didn't notice the lack of emotion until looking back on the book which was quite interesting for me. 
Overall the book was decent, but definitely not one of the best books  I have read so far.
Star rating: