Review for Alanna, the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

This was my first read of this book and my first by Tamora Pierce. Unlike a lot of reviews around my age (19) I didn’t first read this book in my younger teen years, and I only wish that I had because I think it would have become one of my very favourite childhood books and I would have re read it over and over the years. I couldn’t give this book 5 stars as for me now the writing was just a little bit too young to fully enjoy that’s why I only wish I’d read it when I was younger because I think I would have loved it even more. However this book was still immensely enjoyable and I feel like I’ll enjoy the books more and more as Alanna gets older as with her being between the ages of 10 and 13 in this book I didn’t connect with her as much as someone younger may be able to. Over all this was a really promising start and I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the Song of the Lioness series to find out what happens to Alanna and co next. My Rating 4/5 stars ****

Review for Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Sunshine (Rae) has spent her life trying to be normal - Well as normal as it can be in a world full of vampires, sorcerers, were’s and other creatures that go bump in the night. Despite coming from a strong powerful family of sorcerers Sunshine just wants a normal life baking cinnamon rolls in her family’s coffeehouse. Despite her attempts to live a normal life Sunshine is soon flung into the other world when she’s kidnapped by a gang of vampires and finds that she’s to be dinner for her fellow vampire prisoner Constantine. It soon becomes clear that if they both want to get out alive they’ll have to form an unlikely alliance to escape Constantine’s enemy Bo who keeps them imprisoned and Sunshine will have to use her supernatural sorcerer powers that she’s been trying to deny having all these years. The rest of the story follows Sunshine's development of her powers and her forbidden alliance with Con to defeat the master vampire Bo. First things first I’d like to say that I love a good vampire novel. Was this a vampire novel? Me thinks not. The vampires in question hardly feature, and when they do there is little action. I really enjoyed the start of this novel but the rest of the book I found really quiet boring which is probably the worst thing a book can be. There was little action and the middle of the book was filled up with Rae's constant unnecessary babbling. The ending was left really unfinished with a lot of questions still unanswered which would leave a great opening for a sequel but after looking on Robins website it says she has no plans and doesn’t intend to write a sequel which is really quiet bazaar with the way the books set up. However there were parts of the novel I enjoyed very much. I liked the idea of the voodoo wars and I enjoyed learning about Rae’s power. I really had high hopes for this novel as I’ve heard a lot of good things about Robin McKinley. I’ll probably try something else by her in the future but I definitely won’t be re-reading this and I won’t be recommending it! My Rating 3/5 stars ***

Review for The Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Shadow of the Wind is an exciting and suspenseful gothic thriller, set immediately after the Spanish Civil War. One early morning a young boy is taken by his farther to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books a hidden library in Barcelona full of rare and obscure titles. Daniels father asks him to choose one book and to treasure it for the rest of his life. This is how Daniel happens upon The Shadow of the Wind. After reading it Daniel becomes obsessed with the book and its author Julian Carax, as he investigates he is drawn into the mystery of Julian Carax, his books, his death and his life. Before long Daniel is tangled up in the web that Carax has left behind a web spun out of murder, love, betrayal and revenge. I adored this book. It’s one of those rare books that I would recommend to anyone as I truly believe that it has something for everyone. This is one of my all time very favourite reads that I know I’ll re-read over and over in the years to come. I rushed out and brought Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s second book The Angel's Game as soon as I finished it and if it’s half as good as The Shadow of the Wind then I’m in for an outstanding read. My Rating 5/5 stars *****

The Tale of a Book Addict. An Introduction.

Like myself many of you reading this may be addicted to all things books. Reading them, buying them, winning them, reviewing them, listening to them, reading about them. And I - like so many of you - got caught in this web unawares. Here is my confession. Here I was just an innocent teen looking to escape the suckiness of teenhood in a good book, So I wonder to the bookshop pick up a couple of books and devour them that very weekend. Afterward I was aware of this hunger. This gaping hole in me that needed to be filled by – yes - more books. So I decide to look online for some recommendations and find a couple of books that tickle my fancy so off I go to the bookshop again and repeat my actions only this time I find out that the books I’ve just read are part of a series so then I go again and buy the next two in said series then via amazing websites such as librarything and goodreads I meet bookish friends who say ‘well if you liked that I bet you’ll enjoy this’ which I then go out and buy and find that that’s part of a series too and if I like that one I would also like this author who has a couple of other books out, until one day I look around me and I have hundreds of books to be read. Piled up all over my room so that it’s hard to actually move around in there. It was at that point that I found that my reading had become an addiction and like all addictions it had to be nipped in the bud immediately. So at the start of this year that’s exactly what I tried to do - and failed. I found that I didn’t *want* to stop. I loved everything about it. The book buying, the reading, the reviewing the discussing. So I figured I could have worse addictions right? Reading isn’t really that bad if you don’t think about your bank balance, and so I have decided to give in to my nature and embrace my bookish ways for the good of others. So thus begins my journey of ramblings about my bookish ways via this blog. If you’re trying to not buy so many books this isn’t the blog for you instead this blog is a celebration of books and their lovers. So lets here it are ya with me?! Book lovingly yours Jessica ♥