The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I had heard such amazing things about this book and I knew so many people who had read it that I felt rather left out, so I asked for it for Christmas, got it, and I have now managed to finish it in about two days because it was so goddamn good.

First off lets just talk about Gus, although the nickname reminds me of the fat mouse from Cinderella, the character reminds me of a realistic Prince Charming. His metaphors are brilliantly poetic, his personality is perfectly imperfect, he is enchanting, intelligent, hilarious, and so real in his own fictional way. I cried so much when he died, and I am crying just thinking about it.

Van Houten, oh Van Houten. When Gus and Hazel first encountered him he was the douchiest douche in doucheville, and I truly believed that he was the sad, lonely, and permanently intoxicated old git that the book made him out to be, but then I discovered the truth. He was kind of a douche, he was in fact sad, and he was truly lonely, but his loss was what had turned him into this pitiful creature, and the sadness behind his story was so beautiful that it was heartbreaking.

I found Issac really quite charming, I don't particularly know why, I just did. I think it was something in the way that he was naive enough to believe Monica when she said 'always', or maybe it was the way that he threw a half blind tantrum on the night of the broken trophies, but I really loved his character.

The last character that I want to talk about is Hazel, of course, but she is just so different to any other character that I have ever come across, and she is totally different to how I thought she may be. She did not wish to make her mark on the world by creating a charity for kids with Cancer, she just wanted to live in her own little infinity, which sadly ended up being a larger infinity than her star-crossed lovers infinity was. I loved how determined she was to not cry in front of others because she didn't want to force her pain onto them, but was still real enough in her strength that when times got really tough she did break down. And I loved how she was such an ordinary girl, living an pretty ordinary life, there was no big break for her, she got a few days of pure happiness in Amsterdam before her world came crashing down around her, she didn't make a mark on the world, but she made a mark on Gus's tragically small infinity without even truly meaning to, and she loved the love of her life to a battle that should have been won for him, but was lost in the end. She was beautiful, real, and a truly incredible character.

And then there was the writing, the beautifully unpredictable plot, the imaginative metaphors and beliefs that I would quite happily put on pillows or plaques all around my house, and the incredibly intelligent way that John Green phrased things that left me rereading them to make myself understand the words and the way that they were put together, I have never read any other book that so perfectly worded absolutely everything. For a while I thought that the story was a little random in the way that it described the minuscule things in Hazel's life, but then I realized that those minuscule things were beautiful in their own right because they made up Hazel's own little infinity, and they helped to shape the story into one that seemed so breathtakingly real.

Bottom line, I was thoroughly impressed with this book, and I do admire John Green because he must have an impeccable number of highly functional brain cells to write in the way that he does, and I can't wait to read more of his books

Born at Midnight by C.C. Hunter

I have some good points and bad points about this book, but just to save you having to read any further I want to say that I did really like the book, the plot kept me hooked and I struggled to put it down which was why I finished it so quickly. 

First off, the bad points:
~I felt like the plot did get a little crazy with all of the random people showing up and the boys liking her
~ Her gran dying and her parents getting divorced were so close in timing, I couldn't help but think that surely the parents would have the sense to wait a little before deciding to get divorced if they knew how close their daughter had been to her gran and what she was probably going through
~The whole thing with Perry the shapeshifter turning into the unicorn, it's a hilarious idea and I really loved how it was done, but according to a lot of mythology no shapeshifter can transform into any mythological creature without having the blood of that creature, so with that logic, I don't really want to know what his family got up to in order for him to have unicorn blood...
~Not sure if it's exactly a bad point, but it did kinda surprise me, there was quite a lot of sexual referencing in there which I hadn't expected
~I was kind of wondering about the likely hood of her just happening to stumble across her dad full on making out with some bimbo in the middle of town, like hands in pants kind of making out, however, her reaction was pretty accurate so I can over look it since I am probably not just being really picky.

Now onto the good points, and believe me, there are many more good points than bad:
~The main character, Kylie, seemed to really have her feet firmly planted on the ground rather than having her head off in la la land
~Her entire world didn't revolve around the love triangle (love square?) that she was in, she did have other things to worry about that did get talked about just as much as the love...shape thingy.
~The guys sounded super hot! I'm sorry but I would have just as hard a time as her deciding between Derick and Lucas without the extra back story with each of them because they sound just as sexy as each other 
~All the characters had their flaws, it wasn't like in some books where there is this one super hot character that has absolutely no flaws at all and it just too perfect to be anything like a real person
~Going on from that, all of the characters could easily be real people, their personalities are realistic, their reactions to things are generally understandable and fit into their personalities, they were all well rounded characters
~All of the character's gifts were individual, but not all that far fetched, the gifts all sounded perfectly fitting to the creature that the character happened to be which was pretty damn good, makes a change from some of these books who think that werewolves can read minds, vampires can see the future and fairies can shoot lasers from their eyes
~I found myself able to really work through Kylie's thought process and understand why she was feeling the way that she was feeling and why she was doing the things that she was doing for the most part which I really liked 

So overall I loved the book, but I only gave it 4 stars rather than 5 due to those little flaws that I'm fairly sure only I could see, however, they don't take away from the quality of the story and it is still an excellent, well written book that I would happily read again and I can't wait to read the next book.

Please comment below if you found this helpful or if you can recommend any books to me, I am always open to suggestions.
Bye!!

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Okay, first of all I just want to say that I am just as in love with this book as I was with The Hunger Games when I read them, this is probably one of my favorite books now.

I did see quite a few similarities with The Hunger Games, the main one being the whole thing with the society being sectioned off into Fractions (similar to the districts from The Hunger Games) and with the rebellion that is really being led by the strong female leading character. But there are also many differences, like the fact that you have the chance to chose your fraction, they are divided by characteristic traits, and the fact that there is no 'Capital' as such.

But I did love the plot and the way that this book was set up, unlike a lot of other books where you build up to the climax as you get towards the end of the book and then it dies back down again, this just kept building and building and the main bit of the action is right at the end of the book, a lot if it right in the last few chapters. I found myself unable to stop reading once I started, I was just so completely hooked by everything about it.

I found the range of different characters really interesting, the fact that the person who seemed like he should be the leader of Dauntless and who seemed more similar to leaders in other books, wasn't the leader at all, the fact that the author explored many different sides of all of the characters, making them more rounded and more like real people. And then there was the little love triangle thing with Tris, Four and Al, and when I think love triangles I end up thinking of Twilight, but this was nothing like it, it was barely even a love triangle because Al kept so quiet about how he felt about Tris, and half the time Four didn't act like he actually liked Tris, and then Tris had so much else going on that she didn't want to focus on that, it was quite subtle, but still there. And every single time a character died I got myself so upset, I couldn't bare to have them gone because it was written so well that it was almost like real people had died.

Overall I loved this book a lot and I found it an incredibly interesting read.

Please leave a comment below if you have read Divergent and tell me what you think, or if you have any recommendations for what I should read next.
Bye!!

GoodReads and Reading Challenge

That widget right there will send you directly to my Read list on GoodReads which is this awesome sight where you can find books, review and rate them, add books to lists, create your own reading challenge, join groups and find people who like the same books as you, I have been on there for years now and that's where I first found out about the Hunger Games which I think is pretty cool. I strongly recommend that you create a profile on there and come be my friend and then we can chat about books and all that crazy stuff.

Now, I set up a reading challenge last year and didn't manage to complete it, but I am trying it again and this year I am trying to read a book every month, so 12 books by the end of the year, which is probably going to be quite a task with my exams coming rather quickly, but you can set yourself a reading challenge on GoodReads and you can just pick an amount of books that you want to read and every time you say that you have completed a book it will track your progress.

Anyway, I really hope that you join GoodReads because it's a lot of fun, and even if you don't, set yourself a reading challenge and post it below because I would love to see how much you want to be reading this year.

I'M BACK!!!

Okay, first of all, I know I haven't posted in god knows how long but this last year has been totally crazy and I honestly didn't have the time to blog. But I'm back, at the start of March I am hoping to post a review of Divergent by Veronica Roth, and I am hoping to start doing a Book vs Movie thing and I will probably start off with the Hunger Games because I love them so much!!!! The problem is that I read the book about two years ago so I need to recap it a bit. I also want to inform you guys about my Reading Challenge and my GoodReads account but I will do that in another post.
I love you all, bye <3