Escape | Carolyn Jessop | Review

Wednesday, 31 July 2013

Escape | Carolyn Jessop | Review

“In a cult, you have two identities: your cult identity and your authentic self. Most of the time I operated from my cult identity, which was pliant, submissive and obedient. But when I was pushed to the point where it felt like my survival was at stake, my authentic self came to the fore." - Carolyn Jessop, Escape

When Carolyn Jessop was born and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). At the age of eighteen she was forced into a arranged marriage with a man who was thirty-two years older than her. Under the next years Carolyn had eight children with her husband and had to live through all kinds of different abuse from him and his other wives. Carolyn wanted to escape for years but couldn't find a way out. But in 2003 Carolyn fled with her children and Escape is her story about her life in FLDS and how she escaped.

Escape by Carolyn Jessop isn’t an easy book to review. I know... If you’ve read any of my previous reviews I’ve probably stated the same thing, but this time I’m serious. This book is really hard to review…

As always there are two aspects of why I like or dislike a book. It’s about the overall quality of the authors work or about my personal reading experience. I can really appreciate the authors writing style in a book but still feel like the book wasn’t more than average when it comes to my reading experience. With Escape it’s the other way around. I felt that the quality of the writing and language wasn't that good. It felt a bit simple and even a bit sloppy from time to time. But I still really enjoyed the book and I found it hard to put down. Enjoy might not be the right word because this is not a feel-good book in any way. To be honest, Escape is a pretty discouraging read. It might be heartbreaking, but it’s also an interesting story. I’ve always been intrigued by religious cults and Escape gave me some new insight to that world. But I’m also aware of the fact that this is Carolyn’s story and her perspective is the only perspective we get to hear in this book (and that’s all what this book is supposed to be). I’m not i saying that I don’t believe in Carolyn's story but I think that you always have to be aware of the fact that there are many sides to every story.

Overall I have to say that I found Escape to be an interesting and intruding read. It was hard to put down and it made me interested in learning more about FLDS and other religious cults. It was an exciting (yet heartbreaking) read that made me feel so many different emotions. I felt sad and angry (really angry) but also happy and hopeful. Even if this might not be the most well written book out there I do really recommend it to everyone who’s intrigued by religious cults or are interested in these subjects.

I always think it’s harder to rate a nonfiction book because it's really more about interest in the subject than anything else. It’s extra difficult to rate a book that tells someone’s life-story especially when it is such a touching story as Carolyn’s. It's truly an interesting and intense read, but it could have been a bit more well written. So I give the Escape by Carolyn Jessop 3, 5/5 stars.

This post was written by regular reviewer Niina, get to know her here.

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IOU | Helen Warner | Review

Monday, 29 July 2013

IOU | Helen Warner | Review

This is a tale of 3 very different women, in 3 very different situations all facing challenges that could rock their very stable worlds. Amy lives in a gorgeously huge house, living the high life, shopping until she drops whilst the Nanny looks after the children.... that is until her husbands business goes down the pan. How will she cope? Kate on the other hand works incredibly hard along with her husband to help support their two children, she has a safe and stable home life. That is until she meets a dreamy stranger... Finally Jennifer who has recently lost her husband, when an old flame pops back into her life, but is the flame still burning?

IOU is set out from the perspective of these three women, each chapter rotating between them. This however is why I dropped it a star, however much it is really interesting to have more than one story line going at once - there is always one i'm less interested in. In this case sadly I struggled to connect with Jennifer story and really didn't like her old flame and therefore I wasn't interested in reading about her life and found myself skimming her chapters to get onto the next.

Aside from that perspective I didn't really enjoy the other story lines, they were realistic, hard hitting and made me question how I would react when facing challenging situations. When I was first introduced with Amy I really thought that she was going to annoy me and it was her story line that I'd be skipping but actually I really enjoyed watching/reading how her characters changed and grew. Kate was different, I was immediately drawn to her story line but spent the whole time unsure as to which was I wanted it to turn out - I didn't agree with how it ended though.

IOU fits perfectly into it's chick lit genre, I enjoyed reading it although it lacked that sparkle the whole way through. I would recommend this book to any chic-lit lovers, it's easy reading and enjoyable.

This post was written by regular reviewer Laura, get to know her here.
Image from Goodreads

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Inkheart | Cornelia Funke | Review

Sunday, 28 July 2013

Inkheart | Cornelia Funke | Review

Over the years I've had many favourite books, like I'm sure we've all had, and in the future I hope to have many more. Growing up, my favourite books changed a lot. From books like Spot and Dear Zoo, to the Famous Five and The Magic Faraway Tree, to the Edgewood Chronicles and A Series of Unfortunate Events, to The Hobbit and Eragon...and then my favourites more recently. And I still love all these books, but I remember absolutely loving Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, both when I read it, and years after.

Inkheart is the story of Meggie, a 12 year old girl, who lives with her father, Mo, a bookbinder. Books are at the centre of their lives, and everything they do and are. I like to think that our houses are similar - small and with books piled high on every surface and inch of floor. But I digress...

Despite that fact that Mo is a bookbinder, and that both he and Meggie read like there's no tomorrow, Mo has not read aloud to Meggie since before her mother disappeared, years earlier. One night, a stranger arrives at the house, and the truth starts to emerge. Mo doesn't read aloud to Meggie because every time he does, the characters literally come alive; they step out of the pages of the stories into the real world. When Meggie was 3, Mo read aloud from a book called Inkheart, and on that night, Meggie's mother disappeared into the story...

I won't say too much more, but I will tell you that it is a fantastic book, whether you're a fantasy lover or not. It's a story within a story, and the characters are so creative and extreme that they draw you in even more with every page. There are baddies and goodies, sadness and joy, and a whole heap of awesome.

It was first published in 2003, and since then, Funke has written 3 more books as sequels to Inkheart. I have to be honest, I haven't read them yet, but I'm sure they are just as amazing. There is also a movie that came out in 2008, which I haven't seen. I've heard mixed reviews about the movie...but if this sounds interesting to you, please please please start with the book.

Image from Goodreads

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The Monsters In Your Neighborhood | Jesse Petersen | Review

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

The Monsters In Your Neighborhood | Jesse Petersen | Review

   

The Monsters In Your Neighborhood is the sequel to the fantastic Club Monstrosity which was published back in April (read my review here). The book picks up six months after the events of Club Monstrosity where the Van Helsing’s have finally declared war on the group. 

This time around we have two new additions, Dr. Frankenstein’s old assistant Igor and Patrick a Cthulhu who’s’ extensive knowledge of New York’s sewers ends up being very handy! Both new characters played an important part in the plot of this sequel and were entertaining additions to the group. One of my favourite things about Club Monstrosity was the interaction between all of the different monsters, their personalities clash so dramatically but still they are able to pull together due to their shared secret, and in terms of character interaction and development book two didn’t let me down. 

Social media also played a big part in the plot of the book which fitted in perfectly with the pop culture references that scatter the pages of this series. Seeing such iconic characters from classic literature as Dracula take on the technology was a great touch and definitely added to the humour. I also felt that word of the monsters existence spreading via Twitter and YouTube was an accurate representation of how things would play out if something like this really happened in today’s technology driven world. 

As is often the case with sequels unsurprisingly I didn’t quite enjoy this installment as much as the first. Even though it was still a great read, the fact that this unique concept wasn’t new to me this time around did take away slightly from my excitement. Luckily, like the previous book, The Monsters In Your Neighborhood was well-written and had the same tongue-in-cheek humour that made Club Monstrosity such a fun read. 

Overall I would highly recommend this quick-read series and hopefully this won’t be the last we hear from the monsters of New York!

The Monsters In Your Neighborhood is due for release on July 29th - find it here

*Review of an eARC c/o Netgalley

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Briar Rose | Jane Yolen | Review

Monday, 22 July 2013

Briar Rose | Jane Yolen | Review

“Once upon a time…” Becca and her sisters grew up hearing the story of Sleeping Beauty from their beloved Grandmother Gemma. On face value it feels like the original fairytale but it’s not the traditional story with a happy ending. Gemma’s version ‘Briar Rose’ was indeed the beautiful princess who was placed under a sleeping curse along with the rest of the inhabitants of her castle, but this princess was red headed – like Becca’s own Grandmother – and when the prince comes to save the day, the only person to wake from their slumber is Briar Rose. It was an unusual and at times scary story for the young girls but a tale that they made Gemma tell over and over again. 

Now a young woman, Becca still remembers the tale and as her ailing Grandmother Gemma is lying on her deathbed she makes a remarkable confession. Gemma is the princess who awoke from her slumber and her last wish is for Becca to find the castle and the prince from what she thought was just a fairytale.

With only a single mismatched box of Gemma’s belongings to guide her, Becca embarks on a fairytale-like quest of her own into her family’s history. Her search for the truth isn’t the easiest when she finds out that Gemma may have lied about her whole past and even her name. Becca has a breakthrough, which takes her away from her life in America to Poland to follow tale that spans back in time to the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust. 

So what’s my verdict?

This book was not what I expected. What starts out as a girl trying to find out whether a fairytale can really exist in this world turns into a moving journey into her Grandmother’s life before she immigrated to America. Telling the finer details of this story would reveal major plot points, but as I mentioned in my summary the story takes Becca away from the fantastical elements of the Sleeping Beauty story and replaces it with something much more haunting. The truth in the tale, told in a separate story within the book, is more disturbing than Becca can imagine and even more to so for the reader when you realise there were many stories just like it during the midst of World War II.

It’s not so much Becca’s story (though her journey does lead her to question everything she knew about her own life and childhood) but that of Gemma herself. Peppered with flashbacks to Becca’s past, when Gemma would be retelling the story to her young granddaughter, Gemma’s presence is felt throughout. Briar Rose is essentially historical fiction at it’s darkest; nevertheless it’s a poignant story that will leave you realising why Gemma chose to remember the fairytale than the truth. 

Reading Soundtrack: 

The Woods: Daughter; Young & Beautiful: Lana Del Ray; Fix You: Coldplay; Poison & Wine: The Civil Wars; Hospital Beds: Florence + The Machine; Human: Charlene Kaye 

For lovers of

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Schindler’s List and The Diary of Anne Frank.

Image (c)Ria Cagampang

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The Book Thief | Markus Zusak | Review

Sunday, 21 July 2013

The Book Thief | Markus Zusak | Review

Liesel Meminger stands in the cold winter of Nazi Germany in 1939. She watches as her brother is buried in the snow. As she stands beside her brother's grave she sees a book lying among the snow left by accident. This book is the first of her book thefts. Shortly after this, she is sent to live with the Hubermann's and the book takes us through her life there and we see how she becomes The Book Thief. And when a Jew lives in their basement, things get only more complicated. Looking through Death's eyes, we see the hardship of the Second World War and the effects it has in this German town.

The Book Thief is brilliant. Truly and utterly brilliant.I first read it when I was thirteen or fourteen. From the first page, I was thinking of things that I never really considered before. For instance, the colour of the sky, the afterlife the list went on and on as I continued to read. I love Liesel as a character. At a time when books were really rare to come across, it shows her determination to read anything and how she gets to a point where she needs to steal these books. Liesel's foster father is also a brilliant character. He is a brilliant and kind man who teaches Liesel how to read. I would recommend towards the end though that you get some tissues to hand because trust me, you will need them!

As I was reading, I thought to myself: It's hard to believe that these situations actually happened once. The majority of people in those days simply did not know how to read. They couldn't get books as easily as we now can. Nowadays, getting access to books is so easy, with libraries and online shopping and bookshops! For people who love reading (i.e all of you reading this), it is hard to imagine a world without our beloved books.

The Book Thief was brilliantly written by Markus Zuzak and I found his writing style easy to read and I finished this book within the week I had bought it. Since the first time I read it, I have read it a second time and plan to read it again this year because it's a story I love returning to.

I just found out that this book is going to be made into a movie. I am uncertain of release dates but as you can surely tell, I am really excited!

Obviously this is a five star book in my opinion. I would love to hear what you thought of it, if you're going to read it and what not. It's a historical fiction, teen, sort of book but with lots of amazing things in it. So really I would recommend it to anyone! 

This book was reviewed by regular reviewer Lucy, get to know more about her here!
Photos from Lucy Donnan

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