Friday, May 26, 2017

The Ship || Antonia Honeywell


Title: The Ship
Author: Antonia Honeywell
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: April 25, 2017
Genre: Post-apocalyptic 
Rating: 2.5/5

I love reading post-apocalyptic fiction. I think I'm always looking for something that can compare with Station Eleven, which is one of my most favourite books. So far I haven't had any luck but I'm still trying. When I saw The Ship available on Netgalley, I had to give it a shot. 


Our main character Lalla has just turned 16. She has grown up in a world that has fallen apart. The oceans have risen significantly, the earth has been stripped of crops and trees. In attempts to monitor and control the population, everyone is required to have identity cards. If you don't have an identity card, you don't exist. The world has fallen into chaos. Lalla's father has come up with an escape plan of sorts, and on Lalla's 16th birthday it is time to escape. They head to the ship, a floating utopia with everything they need to survive a journey to somewhere where they can start over, along with 500 other people that Lalla's father has chosen to come with them. The ship seems perfect on the surface, but Lalla feels like something sinister is going on behind the scenes...


This book had so much potential for me. The premise was so interesting and I really wanted to know about the world, what happened on a global scale. It was hinted at but there wasn't a lot of exposition on that. 

The pacing was really weird. It felt like tons of time should have passed, but then Lalla will remark on the tally she's kept of how many days they've been on the ship and it's only been a few weeks since the last mention of her tally. The way things progressed just felt like they should've taken longer than what they did. It also felt quite repetitive toward the middle. The story is told as first-person narrative from Lalla's point of view, and she just thinks about the same things over and over. Her thoughts don't really vary at all. A few things happen here and there, but mostly Lalla walks around confused and frustrated that things seem too good to be true, but then does nothing about it. She just thinks about it a lot. 

Lalla is also supposed to be 16, but the way she is written I kept thinking she was 10 or 11. She is meant to be very sheltered by her parents, so I can see how that would make her more immature, but it just didn't jive with me. The rest of the characters didn't connect with me at all. They all just felt really generic shells of people. The dynamic between the people on the ship and Lalla's dad was a cult-cult leader dynamic, and that could have been played up a bit more, I think. There were some weird things going on there, but I just didn't feel anything. It felt like something I'd read before. 


I think my biggest problem was that everyone just felt like a paper cutout. The world these people came from was horrible and any backstory that was mentioned was really interesting. You would think that people that came from that place would have more feeling, but everyone was so bland. I always lean more towards characters than plot, but this book do either of those strongly. I knew what was happening almost right away, but it took Lalla almost the whole book to figure it out.

I can't really recommend this book, but I wouldn't say don't read it either. Like I said, there was so much potential, and maybe it will do for you what it didn't do for me. I did also read The Time Being, which is a short story prequel to The Ship. It added a little backstory, so I would recommend reading that if you do read The Ship.

I'll just keep on my search for the next Station Eleven, I suppose...


I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Beauty & the Beast || Mallory Reaves


Title: Beauty & The Beast 
Author: Mallory Reaves
Length: 160 pages (each)
Publication date: April 18, 2017
Genre: fairy tale, manga
Rating: 3.5/5

While I wouldn't say that Beauty and the Beast is my favourite Disney movie (that honour goes to Tangled), it is definitely up there in the top 3. I mean, what bookworm can't relate to Belle? I really enjoyed the new live action film that came out this spring as well. I liked some of the ways they drew out the characters and gave them more depth. When I saw this manga duology, I just had to read it. The story arc is pretty much the movie verbatim, with the addition of some inner thoughts. Volume 1 follows Belle's story, and volume 2 follows the Beast. The art wasn't amazing, kind of typical manga, and of course the story got really simplified from the movie. But if you're a fan of the movie I'd recommend this for a fast and fun read. 


I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink.

I wanted to sit down and write a blog post, but now I'm here and I don't know what to write about! I have a clever title and that's about it.


(I have actually been wearing pink on Wednesdays lately because I'm cool like that.)

Summer definitely feels like it's ramping up over here. Tomorrow is our last Bible study meeting before we break for summer, and I've only got a few more weeks of choir practice before that's done for the summer as well. I really love all of my church activities, but I'm ready to use my evenings to work on projects I've been putting off. I always tell myself winter is a good time for projects because I'm inside anyway, but no, I just end up reading and knitting. So I plan to tackle my very long list of to-dos over the next couple of months. Maybe I'll have to blog about it to get my motivation up! Hmmm... watch this space.

The plan this weekend (over the long weekend, yes!) is to paint a couple of bookshelves. Maybe 3... if I can convince myself to do that. It is supposed to rain all weekend (because that's what it does on May Long weekend, it rains) so I may just set up camp in the kitchen. But painting is it. I'm reading the rest of the weekend!

T5W: Summer Reads

It's warming up here in Manitoba and I'm starting to think about the books I want to read this summer! So today's Top 5 Wednesday topic is pretty fitting. Today we're talking about summer reads, books that remind you of summer and what you would recommend other people read this summer. Without further ado...


1. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson
I read this as my first MM book last summer, and it was just perfect. It's a road trip story, so if that doesn't say summer then I don't know what does.


2. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
Another story that takes place over a summer and features a bit of a road trip. I know not everyone likes John Green's books but I personally love them. His characters are kind of pretentious, but in the way that teenagers often are. I find them so relateable to my teenage self.


3. Summer Days & Summer Nights - edited by Stephanie Perkins
I didn't love every story in this short story collection, but most of them were super cute. I just realized that 4 out of my 5 recommendations are YA so sorry about that, but that's how I feel.


4. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series - Ann Brashares
This was my quintessential series as a teenager. I reread them summer of 2015 and it was a great time. All of the books take place over summer, and they have that perfect feeling.


5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - Douglas Adams
This one might seem a little random, but for me, I always want to reread this series over the summer months. It might be because they're fun and crazy, and I just read through them really fast, which is something you want in a summer book. Maybe it's because I first read through them in the summer. But whatever the case may be, when I think of summer books, these definitely come to mind.

What do you think of my list? What are some of your top summer reads?