Recent Reads: 1-5

Recent Reads 1-5

Book 1: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The last 100 pages of this book was a roller-coaster and had me so shook.

“I want to survive in this world that keeps trying to destroy me.”
Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

While many say that the beginning was slow I found it to be perfect since Bardugo had to set up world building and and introduce characters and develop backstories. Do everything that involves creating a new world that intertwines with ours but is not so outlandish that we couldn’t believe it. Did I have to forgo some sense of disbelief, yes, but not by much.

The book follows our main character Galaxy “Alex” Stern—and honestly if a badass name like “Galaxy Stern” doesn’t make you want to pick up this book then I don’t know what will. Alex is a high school dropout, drug addict, ghost seer that is dragged into the world of Yale. Yale, with its rich frat boys, playing with old dark and powerful magic that they will never understand. After a near-death experience Alex is offered a deal with the ninth secret house of “The House of Veil” that resides on the campus of Yale University. She attends college there to blend in but is but her main purpose is to oversee the use of ritual magic throughout the year, to make sure no ghost get lose during the rites.

But this is only the beginning of the story. The magic that Ninth House holds is dark, gritty, full of potential that far beyond the capabilities of its rich young and dumb power-hunger users can barely understand.

Everyone has a secret in the book and no one tells the truth. Bardugo wrote a plot that is never dull, predictable, or over showy. She also never attempts to make us love Alex, a girl who been through hell and back and has a knack for getting into trouble. She never tries to beautify Alex or her anger or actions. Alex is a bad person and a very unlikable one at that, but it is also what makes her so refreshing in a world where every is lying and trying forth a fake self to get ahead.

A user I follow on Goodreads describe Alex perfectly in her review: “[. . .] she is as magical as she is ragged, as resigned as she is determined, as accepting of the ghost she sees as she is lacking understanding of the true nastiness of the magic she is charged with keeping.”

In the beginning, all of the pieces that are introduced seem unconnected and you start to wonder where Bardugo was going with this. It is confusing and seemingly unrelated sub-plots all mixed in with blurry haze of drugs fulled on magic, and an a convoluted and twisted reality forms the overall plot—and in the center of it all is Galaxy Stern.

order Ninth House: Bookshop

Book 2: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I read this book because my younger cousin asked me too after say that it was her favorite. I had been meaning to read it for a while now, hearing everything rave about it made me excited but extremely nervous to buy into all of the hype.

I liked this book more than I had planned but not as much as everyone else had seemed too. It broke my heart in a soft and quite way, when I had been expecting to have it ripped from my chest, thrown to the ground and stomped on by a god.

My heart was not thrown on the ground, nor stomped on by a god, but sat in my chest and quietly fell apart.

I do not have much to say about it other than that and I am sorry.

order The Book Thief: Bookshop

Book 3: Radio Silence by Alice Oseman:

“Being clever was, after all, my primary source of self-esteem. I’m a very sad person, in all senses of the word, but at least I was going to get into university.”

I do not have enough words in my vocabulary to explain how much I love this book. I do not even know where to begin, because I have so many feelings for every character in this book.

I have heard so many great things about this book and was afraid to buy into the hype. But let me tell you, the hype is there for a good reason and is deserved.

The novel centers around these two best friends and the year they have before they go off to university. Their relationship is strictly platonic and no one is ever forced into a relationship by the end of the novel. The one relationship that does happen has been building since the two where children.

One of the many things that I loved about this book was the diversity. There is so much of it without it being their main characteristic and some are still figuring out their sexuality. I feel like a lot of YA novels or New Adult novels the characters know what they identify as from the start and we don’t see their process and growth throughout it.

Aled Last identifies as demisexual/asexual but it is not until the end of the novel that he realizes this and mentions it to his boyfriend, Daniel. Their relationship is not perfect and they fight and struggle with communication–they go through difficulties that real couples go through. It is not some fairy tale relationship.

(Quick side note: I, myself, identify as asexual/demisexual and had yet to see any representation until I read Radio Silence. And to have to have it be so accurate and spot on made me cry. Tears of happiness, of course, but still tears.)

Another big theme in this book university. It battles the idea that you have to go to university and get a degree in some traditional subject to get a good job and make a lot of money. Or that you have to go to university at all.

“‘You’re an idiot,’ said Mum, when I relayed to her the entire situation on Wednesday. ‘Not an unintelligent idiot, but a sort of naive idiot who manages to fall into difficult situation and then can’t get out of it because she’s too awkward.'”

Our narrator and main character Frances Janvier is a study machine with her head set on getting into Cambridge University. But not her heart. She becomes best friends with Aled when he messages her fan art account on Twitter for Universe City, asking if she will do visuals for the podcast. Both of them work under fake names so they have no idea who each one is until a drunk incident at a party one night.

As they become best friends and drift apart and deal with mental health and abuse, they learn that you don’t always have to follow the set path that everyone is taking. That it is okay to do your own thing, and be happy on your own terms.

order Radio Silence: Bookshop

Book 4: Exit Wounds by Monica Robinson (re-read)

Exit Wounds is the debut poetry, photography and art collection from Philadelphia based poet Monica Robinson. If you read any of my past post over this poet or collection then you will know that Monica is one of my favourite poets.

In the sea of todays’ Instagram poets Monica is a fresh breath of air, she writes of a million natural shocks in which flesh is heir to. Her work is at its simplest heartache spilled onto 44 pages of a perfect bound paperback. Robinson writes with an unflinching sadness and pain that everyone feels at some point in their young life.

order Exit Wounds: Lulu | Bookshop

Book 5: EARTH IS FULL; GO BACK HOME by Monica Robinson

This being the second poetry collection by Exit Wounds author and possibly one of my most highly anticipated releases of 2020 I could not even begin to explain how excited I was when I saw that pre-orders were available. I filled out the form immediately and waited very impatiently for my order to arrive. I was surprised I had enough self-control to finish my writing paper when I received my order a few weeks back in the mail. Personally I was expecting to give the collection a 5/5 stars, and while it did not receive the expected 5/5 I still gave it a relatively high rating of 4.5/5 stars. To me it was just missing a certain je ne sais quoi to it.

Still I highly recommend anything by this poet.

order EARTH IS FULL: Lulu | Bookshop

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