Review of All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls

A deadly contagion races through England...

Isabel and her family have nowhere to run from a disease that has killed half of Europe. When the world she knows and loves ends forever, her only weapon is courage.

The Black Death of 1349 was the deadliest plague in human history. All Fall Down is a powerful and inspiring story of survival in the face of real life horror.

I am a huge fan of history, as a kid I re-read Terry Deary's Horrible Histories so many times that the pages started falling out. It's always been an obsession of mine. However, when you go through my read shelf, you read don't see that many YA Historical books. Why is that?

Well, this book perfectly illustrates some the problems that historical novels seem to struggle with. While the first half of the book was a bleak picture of life in a village near York, during the Black Death of 1349, the latter half struggled to know where to go with this.

A big problem was the village being set near York, the author clearly felt that you couldn't have a whole book without actually going to York (which I have been to many times, it's lovely but don't go in August), so she had to find a way to shoehorn that in. Which just didn't work.

The character introduction of Thomas was too late in the book to make much sense and his entire storyline felt more like a strange Dickens story. Then the author realised that you can't just leave the village so had to find a way to go back to it within 50 pages. This left the ending feeling rushed, elements quickly shoved in to try and show off their knowledge of the plague and overall, I left feeling dissatisfied.

Review of Nightfall by Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski

After fourteen years of Day comes fourteen years of Night. Be sure not to get left in the dark.

On Marin's island, sunrise doesn't come every twenty-four hours - it comes every twenty-eight years. Now the sun is just a sliver of light on the horizon. The weather is turning cold. The shadows are growing long. The dark is rising. And soon it will be Night.

The eerie Evening sunset is causing the tide to begin its slow roll out hundreds of miles, and so Marin, along with her twin brother Kana and the rest of the islanders, must frantically begin preparations to sail south, where they will wait out the long Night. But first the house must be made ready for their departure. Locks must be taken off doors. Furniture must be arranged just so. Tables must be set as if for dinner. The rituals are bizzare - unnerving, even - but none of the adults will discuss why things must be this way. And then just as the ships are about to sail, the twins' friend Line goes missing. Marin and Kana know where he has gone, and that the only way to rescue him is to do it themselves. And surely the ships will wait?

Because Night is falling. Their island is changing. And something is stirring in the dark.

This Halloween I'm all about Creepy Books About Trees, so after Beware The Wild didn't quite creep me out enough, I thought this mysterious island would do it. Every 14 years, the entire entire packs up their belongings, cleans every house and leaves no trace of their existence. Nothing is discussed as to why everything has to be so exact, leaving the younger residents with a lot of questions that the adults refuse to answer.

"THE HOUSES MUST BE WITHOUT STAIN"

This has some good world building, even outside of the island itself is well described to Marin and the reader. Once the action starts and Marin, Line and Kana start piecing clues together as to why the islanders leave every 14 years, it just gets scarier. The story is kept fairly simple but what is going on is (kinda roughly) explained, which I appreciated.

“Night has fallen. And it will last for a very long time.”

The only thing that prevented me from rating this a full five stars was that it felt a little unfinished. There was a lot of unanswered questions about Marin, Line and Kana's life that warranted a sequel, likely set in 13/14 years from the point of view of their own children. I have no idea if this will ever be made.

Edit: The sequel is called Edgeland! It's not attached to this book so we can presume it's one of those "set in the same world but we don't call it a sequel" things.

Monthly Update (27/10/2019)

The last time I wrote a weekly update post (over a year ago), I was very clearly drowning and trying to convince myself that I was JUST FINE. Which I why this time I am dropping review requests and NetGalley entirely. Let's see if this works?

Read This Week (and a bit)

As usual I dived into reading head first and excitedly read everything I could get my hands on! I've had The List, Thanks and Rest Of Us on my TBR forever so it felt good to finally get them read. reviews of those will be on my blog soon.

Anticipated November Releases

I'm going to skip having an October wrap up post, it's so close to the end of it. So here's the November releases I can't wait to arrive in my postbox:

 The Starless Sea has a gorgeous US edition which I sincerely wish I had bought. The UK cover is so ugly (it would be better without the shadow man) and it is A TOME. It's already released in the UK in paperback, I really wasn't expecting it to be so freaking big in height. It will be hard to read this without breaking the spine. Expect to see reviews of these books popping over the next month and I'll leave an update about them too.

Review of The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses. 

I have never once picked up a book and thought, man I hope this book has a main protagonist that spends 150 pages sitting on a horse, complaining about sitting on a horse. And complaining about being hungry, while sitting on a frickin horse. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I got with this book. Other reviewers have noted that the sequels are much stronger, which made me persevere.

This book felt like a set up for a bigger story, which proved correct. So you don't get infodumped by the history of this fantasy land, Gen's accompanied by Magus, Sophos, Pol and Ambiades, who are basically there to cook food, stab things and learn from the Magus. It's the latter where the story gently nudges you in the ribs with enough force to leave a bruise, but you come away getting the history.

I had this crazy theory all the way through the book that Gen was going to turn out to be a girl, and I was wrong. So that was disappointing. The ending did have an interesting payoff, explaining Gen's actions throughout but I'm not quite sure it made up for just how freaking boring the story was for the most part. It took me a full freaking weekend to finish this less than 300 page book.

Thanks For The Trouble - Tommy Wallach

Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 276
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: 25/02/2016
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“Was this story written about me?”

I shrugged.

“Yes or no?”

I shrugged again, finally earning a little scowl, which somehow made the girl even more pretty.

“It’s very rude not to answer simple questions,” she said.

I gestured for my journal, but she still wouldn’t give it to me. So I took out my pen and wrote on my palm.

I can’t, I wrote. Then, in tiny letters below it: Now don’t you feel like a jerk?

Parker Santé hasn’t spoken a word in five years. While his classmates plan for bright futures, he skips school to hang out in hotels, killing time by watching the guests. But when he meets a silver-haired girl named Zelda Toth, a girl who claims to be quite a bit older than she looks, he’ll discover there just might be a few things left worth living for.

Admittedly, when I when the blurb of this - a boy that never speaks and some snobby girl with a lot of money - I did roll my eyes. But I was intrigued enough to buy it. It was the right decision - despite so many things that should have gone wrong with this book, everything seemed to go right and I ever had that sad moment where I didn't want to close the last page at the end. This book is perfect for John Green fans.

It absolutely uses the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope but this time our character Zelda felt like a fully realised human being. She's an old soul who knows the history of the city but has never experienced what it is to be a teenager, while Parker has closed himself off from his peers, using his lack of speech as an excuse really, to avoid social situations. Both are dealing with their own unique grief and they help each other move on from that.

This book gets wonderfully strange fairly early on and adds a concept not often seen in contemporary romance. I'm a fan of strange hipster novels so wandering around Tea Rooms, visiting local museums and musing over Seurat paintings was completely up my alley. I can't wait to read more from this author!

Passenger - Alexandra Bracken

Series: Passenger #1
Genres: Time Travel, Romance
Pages: 496
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Release Date: 05/01/2016
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In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them—whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home... forever.

You really have to be in the mood for a tome when reading this book, because it doesn't really start going until 200 pages in. I'd be unsurprised to see this on many DNF shelves. Once it does get going though, it's a pretty fun ride, hopping between cities and centuries as Etta and Nicholas try desperately to find her mother's Astrolabe while on the run from the Ironwoods and Thorns.

I'm gonna say the word and you're not going to quickly close the tab, okay? You ready? Insta....love. This isn't quite as full on as other examples of insta-love but I absolutely feel it fits in the category. Your mother has been kidnapped, you're trying to find this stupid relic before idk the universe collapses or something and what are you doing? Mooning over Nicholas when he's shirtless.

Overall if you're not invested in the treasure hunt / time travel aspect I would just give this one a miss. There seems to be a lot of repeated words and sentences, the book takes FOREVER to get going, the chapters are kinda weird cos they'll go from really short to a solid 30 minutes long and you're gonna need to read the sequel to get any form of closure. I'll definitely be reading the sequel which I just ordered cheap off Abe Books (minor plug because I just love me some cheap af second hand books) but I'm not sure you'll be seeing this duology on my shelves in the future.

The Rest Of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness

Genre: Contemporary, Fantasy
Pages: 345
Publisher: Walker Books
Release Date: 05/05/2016
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Not everyone has to be the chosen one.

What if you're not an indie kid, fighting zombies, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?

What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.

Sometimes you just have to discover how even an ordinary life can be extraordinary.

I believe I bought this book when it was first released, which means that this little gem has been lurking on bookshelves, stuffed into boxes and has lived in a shed for 3 years before I finally pulled it out and cracked it open.

I've read most of the big tropey YA books, I've suffered through Vampires, Immortals, Angels, Demons, Fae, all of those big hyped Paranormal Romances that came after Twilight. It looks like this book dealt with them too. I loved how aware the sections featuring Satchel and the indie boys were, constantly daring to poke fun at the genre while weaving an emotional story about The Rest Of Us, the kids that just want to graduate and leave their small town in peace.

Interweaving the two narratives is probably the cleverest part of the book, while you only get a small paragraph of Satchel's side of the story (hey we have a YA book where the main character is called freaking Belly so in comparison this name is valid), which gives you some context of what is happening to Mikey and his friends when they suffer the aftermath of an avalanche of deer, scary blue eyed cops and building being blown up.

This small group of friends really felt like real people dealing with real issues, relationships and mental health issues. I loved them all. The ending is bittersweet and really left me wishing for a sequel, while everything is wrapped up the characters themselves were left with question about what would happen in their futures, just like all of us have.

The List - Siobhan Vivian

Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 336
Publisher: Push
Release Date: 01/04/2012 
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An intense look at the rules of high school attraction - and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.

At some point in her life Siobhan Vivian decided that having a 350 page book with eight different points of view was a fine idea, and no-one sat her down and suggested that maybe, no.

Quite frankly that could really sum up the whole book without a full review. However I do feel I should cover the Whole Thing, including the underused characters, the stories that never were and the complete lack of ending. The majority of characters get no closure whatsoever. It just stops. A couple of characters get a decent ending but not a single character comes away from the story without leaving unanswered questions. Potentially some spoilers as I'm discussing who got a decent ending. 

Freshmen: Ugliest - Danielle. Prettiest - Abby. I think most readers can agree that Danielle could easily hold up an entire novel by herself, she's a great character that struggles with being viewed as masculine, while loving to swim competitively. She has a boyfriend she met at camp that's acting weird around her and a great backstory about how they met. Easily a standalone. On the other hand, Abby is not really memorable or interesting and she may have the least amount of chapters. Abby's sister was easily more intriguing, she's a geek that struggles with not being as pretty as her younger sister and later on (view spoiler).

Sophomores: Ugliest - Candace. Prettiest - Lauren. Candace is labelled as ugly due to her personality, which you basically never see. Lauren has just moved to town after previously being homeschooled and is almost a Carrie character, if Carrie was attractive and accepted by girls. Candace seems hurt by her friends but you never see the ugly personality mentioned. If anything, Candace and Lauren end up with an interesting almost-friendship that could also have been explored in it's own book. The ending for Lauren ends with a lot of questions as to what will happen in her future.

Juniors: Ugliest - Sarah. Prettiest - Bridget. Sarah gets called Ugly so naturally, she decides to wear the same clothes and not bathe for a week. She somehow gets so disgusting that no-one wants to stand near her. Anyone who's been stuck in a depression spiral knows that this is greatly exaggerated and unless you're running track every single day you're not going to be as greasy and smelly as Sarah is on Day 3. I found her obsession with Milo's ex pretty annoying but she did have an okay ending. Bridget has an eating disorder, which the List just makes a hundred times worse. She gets no ending really, no closure, not even a clue as to if her disorder will be dealt with before it's too late. It was a very strange ending, almost flippant which you never want to be about a subject as serious as this. 

Seniors: Ugliest - Jennifer. Prettiest - Margo. Jennifer and Margo have a history and they're yet another pair that could fill a whole book. Margo was a good point of view to have, as she showed the hard decisions people have to make to fit in, and the way friendships change as you grow up. I found the reasons Margo had for disliking Jennifer to be pretty understandable in the end at least.