Review: Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh

Book: Telling the Bees
Author: Peggy Hesketh
Series: N/A
Pages: 305
Genre: Mystery/literary fiction
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Goodreads page

Usually, I wouldn't like a book like this very much. It was very slow and the main character was much more contemplative than in most books I enjoy. I'm not a huge fan of contemporary fiction or mysteries either. However, I did enjoy this book. I'm not sure why but I definitely liked it.

The main character, Albert, is an old beekeeper and has been his whole life. He's never really had any adventure or done anything interesting in his life. At first I thought he was going to be very boring, but he's not. He's full of interesting facts about bees that I never new before. For example, a queen bee isn't born a queen bee, but is nurtured on royal jelly to make her develop the right organs to be a queen bee instead of a normal worker bee.

Some would find these seemingly random facts about bees annoying and distracting but they actually all relate to the story. Albert will explain something about bees and a few pages later it will be revealed how a human character has done the exact some thing he just described with bees. The author uses descriptions of bees' lives to foreshadow all the time, so by the end I'd read something simple about bees and would be scouring my head for how that could relate to the story and what it meant. Plus, they were really interesting, and I much prefer learning random things in books than school and am much more likely to remember something I learnt while reading.

As for the mystery side of the book, it was decent. I'm not keen on mysteries but like I said above the author used the bees to foreshadow, which made it more interesting for me. It was quite well thought out and I didn't spot any plot holes. The thing is, the big revelation at the end of the book wasn't really a big shocker. It was more of a "yeah, that makes sense" while nodding head sort of thing. I guess a relaxed revelation matches the tone of the book though, which was very slow and laid-back. All the same, don't go expecting a big "wow, I never would have guessed that!" moment.

All in all a very sweet, simple book. No action or adventure, but a sweet old man and many hives of bees. It was a slow read, but still enjoyable. Though, come to think if it, if I'd read this two years ago I don't think I'd have been able to finish it; I'd have wanted a more interesting plot and more fast paced action and wit. I think this is the sort of book you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy properly, and maybe older adults would find it a more enjoyable read than teenagers and young people. Still, I liked it and I'm glad I got the opportunity to read it.

I won this book through Goodreads First Reads but in no way does that effect (affect?) my opinion of it.

Old Review: Qeya by Jennifer Silverwood

Title: Qeya

Author: Jennifer Silverwood

Series: Heaven's Edge #1

Genre: YA Science Fiction/Fantasy 

Pages: 88

Rating: ★★★★☆

Goodreads Page

I'm reading the second book in the series at the moment so I thought I'd post my short review of this from October 2012.

I recieved this books as an R2R in the Goodreads group Young Adult Reads.

This is such a sweet little book that I really enjoyed reading. It's quite short so it's quick and easy to read and perfect for challenges. It's really easy to get into to the story and I was really intrigued to find out about these strange "hunans" that are similar to people but have gills and silvery hair. The story kept my attention the whole time and was very nicely written. I will probably be reading the next in the series at some point 'cause I want to know what'll happen with Ohre, the miner.

The only thing I wasn't too keen on was Ohre's way of speaking. Just about everyone in this book spoke normally but than Ohre would say something and I'd have to re-read what he said because it just didn't match the rest of the book. Here's an exaple of something Ohre says in the middle of a completely normal sounding conversation: “How it be cranking there, Navigator?”

For me this was just annoying but I understand why he speaks like this. It does set him apart from the hunans (he's a miner) but in my opinion it would have made more sense if he talked more normally.

Review: Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Title: Unravel Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Series: Shatter Me #2

Genre: YA Dystopia

Pages: 461

Rating: ★★★★☆

Goodreads Page

4.5 stars

This. Was. Amazing.

Seriously, this book was really really really good. I absolutely adore Tahereh Mafi's wrting style. I can't believe I didn't read this book when it first came out in February. I went a whole year without reading Tahereh Mafi's amazing writing!

I especially love the crossing out of sentences. It's so much more effective in this book than it was in Shatter Me, when it was mostly to show how crazy Juliette was. Now it just shows her conflicting emotions and really adds so much to the book. And the repetition of words when she's stressed out and just can't can't can't can't handle it is great too. I mean, it's exactly how a person's mind works in tough situations.

Honestly, I think the writing is what makes this series great. Without it you'd still get a pretty interesting book but you wouldn't feel half as connected to all the characters. Juliette would just seem like a normalish teenage girl if the writing wasn't so unique. Instead she is this complex character with so many different thoughts and battles going on inside her head.

I think it was partly due to this that the author was able to wrench my heart out a few times during the book. This and the pure intensity of every scene. I changed my mind about what Juliette should do about certain things so many times while reading it. At one point I even shouted at the book! I was so mad about what she was doing!

The whole book was just tension, romance, action, tension, romance, tension, action, romance, tension, tension. It was great! So fast paced and unputdownable! I seriously couldn't put it down at all and devoured a huge part of it in one afternoon. Now I just need to sequel.

ASAP!

Review: The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Carasanti

Book: The Almond Tree
Author: Michelle Cohen Corasanti
Series: N/A
Pages: 348
Genre: Historical Fiction - War
Rating: ★★★★☆


I won this book through Goodreads First Reads but that does not affect my opinion on the book.

I usually really like historical fiction books, and this was no exception. Just like any good books from this genre it provided insight into how people used to live. But this is different in one way: it is set in wartime Palestine (1955 and onwards).

Now, I'm ashamed to say that prior to reading this book I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. I knew that there were always wars in the Middle East, but that's it*. You can imagine how shocked and disgusted I was to discover that Jews, after everything that'd happened in the second world war, had then gone and done something so terrible to Palestinians. It's explained more further into the book, but at first it was just a "wow" moment.

This book was such an eye-opener into how they lived too, and how terrible they got treated. I was so disgusted and saddened to read about the main character's life as a child, all the hardships and injustices his whole family faced. And the thing is that this sort of thing actually happened to millions of people, it's not just fiction. That was the thought that was nagging at me the whole time, that countless other people had to live through this.

I think what made this story good was that it was based on real history and exposed so much of the terrible life Palestinians had. But it was good in other ways too, of course. I was completely unable to put it down while I read the first two parts. It grabbed my attention from the first page and didn't let it go until I was 200 pages in. I was put off reading it around that point because I really didn't like the person that Ichmad (the protagonist) had become. In fact, I just wanted to slap him across the face. He didn't want to solve any of the problems in his home country, only take everyone to America, which he seemed to think was so perfect. He was just so selfish and naive when he was an adult, much more than he had been as a child/teen/young person. I forgave him in the end, and realised that the author was just trying to show us what a life like that can do to a person and show us that Ichmad was a real person, not a Mary-Sue.

All in all, a wonderful book which I highly recommend to anyone, even if you do not like this sort of thing. The Almond Tree really raises awareness about so many issues and everyone can learn from this book. If you read this book then I'm sure that the next time you're watching the news and see x number of people in ______ country killed and wounded, it won't just be more of the same thing, you'll feel connected to all these people suffering miles and miles away. Yes, you might feel guilty, but at least acknowledging that this sort of thing is happening is much better than turning a blind eye to it all.



(*Isn't that terrible that I knew nothing about any of it? I mean, we're not taught anything to do with this is school. We spend countless history lessons learning about the first and second world wars, yet get taught nothing about things in other countries, unless it's related to our country and we were in the right. That's really  annoying me right now)

Review - If You Die Before I Wake by Michelle Frank

Book: If you die before I wake
Author: Michelle Frank
Series: Saving Sabrina #1
Pages: 265
Genre: YA Paranormal/Horror
Rating: ★★★★☆


So, I really, really liked the story of this book. The plot was great. Every time I picked it up Sabrina's story sucked me in and I was no longer myself, I was Sabrina. If I read some of it in the morning then all through school I'd be trying to figure out this mystery of who Devon was. At first I thought it was a bit cliché having a girl who's been in a mental hospital most of her life and is haunted by a little boy. However, Michelle Frank made the idea her own, so that it was unlike other books from this genre.

What let this book down was the lack of editing. Within the first 30 pages I'd spotted about 5 mistakes, and they kept coming. A few sentences didn't make sense, and at one point I think there was a mix up of past and present tense. The many grammatical errors in it really let this book down, and had the story not been great I wouldn't have put up with these mistakes. There were less mistakes by the end, but for some readers the lack of editing in the beginning would have completely put them off.

Another little annoyance I had with If You Die Before I Wake was how fast Sabrina's relationship with a certain someone went. Within a week of her going on her first date she was acting as if she was in a long term relationship, and could think of nothing else. I can understand that it may have been her hormones catching up with her after years without ever seeing guys her own age, and when we learn about his story it makes sense that their relationship was going fast, but I still think it could have been slightly more realistically paced.

Other than that I thought the characters and their relationships with each other were great. You can really see the character development in Sabrina as she goes from a naïve girl from a mental home, to a fairly independent young woman. Michelle Frank does this wonderfully, with Sabrina changing slowly over the course of time. You can even see how all her experiences help her along the way, and that's one of the best things about this book. The other characters are realistic too, and I absolutely adored Sabrina's grandfather, who was so simple and sweet. I hope we still read about him in the second book in the series, even though Sabrina's growing up and won't need as much family support.

In summary: a wonderful book with a severe need of editing, and some great characters. I think I'll probably read the next one in the series, though there was enough closure in this one that I don't need to (another thing that's good that many books from a series don't have). I definitely recommend this book.


P.S. I received this book through Goodreads First Reads, though that does not affect my opinion on this book.

P.P.S. Thanks you very much to the author for the hand written note and the sticker :)