Tuesday 15 December 2015

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black Review

Hey book lovers! So as promised, I am now back with another book review. I just finished this book, and I decided to do a review on it. This review will be different from the usual reviews that I always do, I will be putting a spoiler review at the end of my non-spoiler review part of this book. However, no worries, I will be putting a really big warning just to warn you guys from getting spoiled if you haven't read this book yet. 

I give this book about 4/5 stars

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.


At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.


Until one day, he does…


As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?


Published on : February 5th 2015 by Indigo

Review:
This book was really good, let's be honest here. However, there are just some parts which I didn't really enjoy, but I will get to that later. When I was reading this book, I really want to continue this book, but for some reason, I didn't have any motivation to push through this book, it was a real struggle. I had to go to a cafe just to sit down for hours in order to push through it and try to finish it in one sitting, because I know, I KNOW that I won't even finish it even if I read it for 10 years.

What I enjoyed about this book:
The way the whole mystery was revealed bit by bit in the book. (Don't worry, the next information I'm giving away is said in the first few chapters, so it's not considered a spoiler!) 
The part where there was this acorn found inside Hazel's pocket with handwriting was really weird and cool, but at the same time, it was kind of confusing since it was suddenly mentioned in the book. However, it as the whole mystery was revealed throughout the book like how the acorn came about and why was it there. Everything was just so awesome!

The characters are really interesting, especially the siblings - Ben and Hazel, and also the horned boy. He is just a mystery to everyone and I was just so intrigued by his every move. I wanted to know what he was thinking, and why did he even do what he did sometimes. Also, Jack was just so cool but his character can be really depressing sometimes as he talked about himself and his family, which was kind of sad yet at the same time, it made me understand him more and allowed me to reach out to him even more.

What I disliked about this book:
The pace in this book was kind of slow. Not like there was nothing interesting, but the way the book was written, it wasn't meant to be a fast paced book. There was just so many details inside the book where you have to really read the sentence word by word in order not to skip out any crucial information of the mystery. It wasn't bad, but it just made me lose all my motivation as I progressed through the book. Which was kind of a disappointment...

Also, this book was just REALLY confusing sometimes. Like I will be reading about 10 pages but I will have totally no idea what just happened. It's not like I'm not paying attention to the book, but sometimes this just happen while I'm reading the book, and I will have to re-read parts of the book again before I finally grasp what it was trying to say. Which is annoying after awhile.

Overall:
I enjoyed this book but not that much that I will give it a 5 star rating since the book was really kind of slow and hard to get into at first. However, I would still recommend it if you are up for a cool and interesting plot, with amazing characters. The revelation of the mystery and the acorn was really worth it when you finally managed to finish reading the book.

If you guys like Fantasy, Romance, faeries, LGBT, adventure, then this book will definitely suit your taste! Definitely pick it up, the ending will be worth it.

Next I will be moving on to a small part of a spoiler review on my thoughts of the book. Only read on if you have finished reading the book so as not to get spoiled!

[SPOILER ALERT] 
[SPOILER ALERT]
Get off this paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled
(keep scrolling till you see the next sentence that has red!)
So for the part that I really enjoyed and has been on my mind ever since I put down this book was the ending. I was so overwhelmed by the ending, especially when Severin confessed his love for Ben, it was just so beautiful! The way he linked his confession back to the part where they had their first conversion in Ben's room, it was just played out so beautifully, showing how he actually remembered the words that Ben has ever mentioned. 

Can we also talk about how the mystery was revealed, it just left me speechless, I didn't expect that at all! Especially the part where it explains how the acorn came about, and the pact she made with the faerie was just so unexpected. However, it's like her effort were all meaningless when Ben destroyed his hand and was dropped out from school, it made her promise with the faerie all go to drain. And when it revealed that the acorn was written by her own night self was just so shocking! I didn't expect it to be her own self to have written that.

Also the epilogue was just priceless. I was so amazed at the ending of the epilogue, it just blew me away. I did not see that coming, and it was a really interesting way of writing an epilogue. The way Holly Black talked about what happened to the characters without even saying their name was just so cool! She just used description to describe the characters and what they are doing is just so mindblowing. It made me smiled at the last paragraph because it was a really interesting way of writing an epilogue, something that I have never really seen in most of the young adult books which was super awesome!
End of spoiler section!

All right, so with this, I will end the post here. I hope you guys will be interested in the book after you read my review, and be sure to pick it up if you are intrigued by my thoughts on the book and the synopsis written! Until the next post is up, happy reading! =)

Sunday 13 December 2015

HUGE Book Haul! :O [November'15]

On Sunday, 8/11/2015, which was two days ago, there was a book sale going on in the West. I had no idea there was going to be a sale, until my best friend who saw the announcement on Facebook started to freak out and even called me, saying that we have to go to this sale.

And so we did, and now I'm going to show you what books I got. 

But before that, I just want to let you guys know that I got 12 books for... $52. Can you believe it? If it weren't for the sale, I would have to spend almost $200 for 12 books. 

So first of, let me tell you something that happened there. At first, me and my friend couldn't find the right location where the book sale was held, took us about five minutes to find it. We then spent about an hour looking for books, until I realized that there was a banner which says "Young Adult", and it was over at the other section.

I went to told my friend about it, and we had to put down the books that we found in a basket, before heading off to the other section, since we could not bring the books from this section to the other part of the section, which was REALLY inconvenient. I ended up spending another hour to find books, which to be honest, the books are in a pretty decent condition. I thought since this is a book sale, the books which are really cheap, will be in a beat-up condition. I'm really glad that that was not the case at all. So, shall we get started on the books that I have gotten at the book sale there? Let's start!


1. The Raven Boys by Maggie Steifvater

I was hesitating whether to get this book, but as i walk down the aisle, I saw the sequel, The Dream Thieves for only $2, so I thought why not just get these two books!

So the next book I got is... You guessed it!
2. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Steifvater









However, the more I walk down the aisle, I couldn't find a single book that catches my eye. 
Suddenly, as I turned towards my right, on top of the other books on the table is the Grisha trilogy. I think someone actually left the books there because it was stacked up nicely and the books are in pretty good condition. However, the only downside to this stack is that, Ruin and Rising is slightly bigger than the other two books...
So I decided to hold on to it first while I continue to look for other books. I ended up getting that whole stack of books! 
4. Seige and Storm
5. Ruin and Rising
All these three books are by Leigh Bardugo!









6. Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott

Next, I saw this book and I remembered how it was being hyped up last year, being compared to the Hunger Games and the anime, Pokemon. So many people from booktube and bookstagram have been going on and rave about this book, it was just so overwhelming! There were also really good reviews on the Goodreads, so I thought, why not pick it up? 
I can't wait to read it now that i have this book!








7. Far from You by Tess Sharpe


Next, I came upon this book, sitting inside the box full of other books, and the cover just caught my eye. Intrigued by the book cover, I checked the rating on Goodreads, and surprisingly, it has a 3.98 rating, which is quite high! 
However, there aren't any booktubers or bookstagrammers that have read this book yet, but based on the community's review, it seems like a really good book! So the next book I got is...











8. Landline by Rainbow Rowell

The next book is a standalone. I was talking to my best friend recently about wanting to buddy read a book with her. We happened to talk about Fangirl and Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, however, she doesn't have those books, so it will take awhile for her to purchase it before we can even buddy read a book together. 
So while we were at the book fair, we came across a book that we both didn't have, and we decided to use it for our buddy read. So this book is...














While I continue to walk 
down the aisle, wandering aimlessly, without a single idea which book to find, I saw this book. And the first thought that came to my mind, was that I remembered seeing videos on YouTube by those famous booktubers saying that the duology will soon be out of print. It could have already stopped printing, who knows! I immediately grabbed the two books and I'm pretty sure you know which two books they are, right?

9. The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke
10. The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke



2nd book in the trilogy
3rd book in the trilogy
Next, I was going to go checkout, until I realised I need 2 more books to get a cheaper price, so I wasn't sure what to get and was rushing for time, I was panicking at that time already, until I remembered something. I saw a trilogy on my way to the checkout somewhere on the table hidden amongst hundreds of books. I immediately went to get it and even though the trilogy only had the last books in it, I still got it, since I was intrigued by the synopsis and also it has quite a high rating on Goodreads, so I thought why not just pick it up.
                                       11. Fire with Fire by 
Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
12. Ashes to Ashes by 
Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

So these are all the books I got at the book fair, and I will show you guys a picture of the books stacked together. Also, in case you guys want to read the synopsis, just click the book titles besides the numbers, and you will be diverted to the Goodreads page! Alright, that is all for this super long post! If you managed to read till here, I'm really happy! *virtual hugs to you* if you do read till here! I will have a next post up soon, so until then, happy reading! =)