Please Don’t Disturb

A.R. Torre’s second book in the Deanna Maddon trilogy, I magically found it in really good condition at a secondhand bookstore and just had to pick it up! I will say, straight up, that I didn’t love this as much as the first book. I gave that 5* and I “only” gave Do Not Disturb 4*. So I still did really enjoy it!

I don’t want to spoil anything for those who have not read book 1 (The Girl in 6E), so this’ll be a spoiler free view. The themes which made 6E so great are explored further in this book, with a lot of character development throughout. It’s definitely not stagnant from the first book. In both books there’s a crime risk which causes big parts of the plot, and in Do Not Disturb this did disappoint me a little and was why it dropped a star. It just felt like it was over very quickly and didn’t have any major impact or influence on anything. Given that it had such a build up from the very beginning of the book this was just a let down, but clearly it wasn’t that much of a let down if I still gave the book 4*!

I did love how our main character struggled with her issues and her desires, whilst also growing into this new relationship that she has with the outside world. The sex-cam part of her life really dies down in this book, but not stupidly drastically, just in a way that makes sense for the plot progression and I enjoyed that.

Basically, if you read book 1 and enjoyed it I definitely recommend giving book 2 a shot. It might live up to your hopes, it might not, but you should still have a great time reading it!

Have you read any of this series? What did you think? Comment and let me know!!

My best books of 2019!

 

I read a lot less 5* reads in 2019 compared to 2018, but I still had a decent selection to pick from for this list and I love all of these books!

I’m going to start off with my absolute favourite of the year, which seems backwards, but I can’t rank all of my other favourites so I may as well get the #1 spot up first!

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot, is an absolutely gorgeous book.

There’s a small coffee shop in a basement which has a secret, people know about it but they can’t believe that it’s true. The staff in the shop will only tell the customers who they believe need the experience. And it’s not as positive as many believe before they sit down. But their lives are forever changed, big impacts are made. This book is beautifully written and I only picked it up randomly for NetGalley, I’m so so glad that I did. I recommend this above everything else on this list, which is a big statement seeing as these are all 5* reads for me. However, I feel like this book will appeal to many different audiences and so I really do encourage you to at least look at the GoodReads page and read the synopsis (link here) and consider picking it up. If you’re interested, then you can find my full review here.

Now onto the rest of my favourite books! There are 10 books for the rest of this list and they are in the order which I read them throughout 2019 (to avoid putting them in any other sort of order, because I really can’t decide).

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon (The Bone Season #2) 

I read this on the train going back down to Portsmouth for my heart operation after my Christmas break, it’s around 8 hours of travelling so I had a lot of time to sit with the book and I really enjoyed it. Although the ending annoyed me so much and I had to stay composed because I was on a train!! Another amazing book from Samantha Shannon. Read my full review of the book here.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale #1)

I’m massively late to this party, of course, but I finally picked up this book in a secondhand shop and read it early on in 2019. It was amazing. I loved the commentary on female autonomy and sadly it did really hit a chord with me, despite being written “so many” years ago. If you’re interested my full review is here.

Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen (Orphan Monster Spy #1)

I got this the day before I started by BookTube channel, and it took me until now to read it. There’s a bit of a theme here but if I’m getting through my backlog I won’t complain! This YA WWII based book follows a young Jewish girl who can pass as an Aryan and becomes a spy in a Nazi girls school. Check out my full review here.

Book of Lies by Teri Terry

I really love everything I’ve read so far from Teri Terry, she is truly one of my favourite authors. This book follows a girl who isn’t loved by her family, they don’t care about her at all. But then she finds out a bit secret, something that she wasn’t supposed to know. Magical and mystical, this is such an interesting book. My review is here.

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman (The Devouring Gray #1)

This is the first book that I ever requested from a publisher and it’s the first one that was sent to me! So of course this book will always have a special place for me, but on top of that it’s a fantastic YA book with sprinkles of magic and just enough weirdness to keep you completely hooked. I can’t wait to read book #2! Check out my full review here.

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (Arc of the Scythe #2)

Have you read this series yet? Why not? If you like dystopian or just a great YA directed book then this is 100% a series you should pick up! There is no more natural death in the world, it’s been cured. So scythes must kull the population in order to prevent it getting out of control. But of course there are a lot of issues with this plan, it was never going to work. Check out my full review of Scythe here(which is book #1) and my review for Thunderhead here.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Illuminae Files #1)

Another book I’ve finally read! This multi-media sci-fi YA is gripping and so interesting and I finally understand why people raved about it so much for years! I definitely need to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy and I can’t wait to carry on with this story and see where it goes. See my full review here.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I actually DNF’d this at my first attempted reading this year, but at a push from so many people online I picked it up to give it another go. I’m so rediculously glad that I did as this book is magical and wonderous and such a great read! If you’ve seen the film you’ll still love the book as there were only a few changes and I’m very glad I listened to everyone who told me to pick this back up! My full review is here.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

I read this all in one day, sat by a paddling pool my aunt had set up on the hottest day of the year in the UK at 40 Celsius, that’s 104 Fahrenheit for those of you in the US. I was dying! Yet despite that, I was glued to my seat, gripped within this story. A fictional tale inspired by the suffering of so many from slavery in the US. My full review of this novel can be found here.

The Aliens are Coming by Ben Miller

This was the first book I read after finishing my MSc dissertation. I’m so glad I picked up a science-y non-fiction as this was perfect for me in the mindset that I was in and it was also really fun (Ben Miller is a UK comedian if you didn’t know) as well as teaching me more about the search for other life forms. Check out my review here.

And that’s it! Those are all of my favourite books of 2019! I did read a few more books which I gave 5*s throughout the year (Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein and Night by Elie Wiesel). I would have ranked them lower than these books, however, and given that there are already 11 books on this list I decided to cut them out. What was your favourite (or your favourites) of 2019? Have you read any of the books that are on my list? Let me know!!

 

Five Give Up The Booze, a review

Another parody famous five book about excessive drinking this time. This one was, well… let me explain.

The majority of it was just like the other books in this parody series that I’ve read so far, the five are in the modern day and are struggling with an issue. This time the issue happens to be excessive drinking, and they decide to attempt dry January as a group. Now, of course, the ending is all wrapped up nice and neat, everything turns out alright in the end, Bruno Vincent keeps these classic hallmarks of the original stories. However, there was a bit that made me feel uncomfortable within this one (which hasn’t happened previously). There was an LGBT aspect which seemed to be thrown in there simply for humour, but it doesn’t come off well. It took me a second to figure out that it wasn’t meant to be serious and then once I realised this I was uncomfortable with the scene. It’s just not done well at all and really lowers my opinion of this book.

Other than that, this is another enjoyable and silly rendition of the five and if you can get past the hiccough above (and like me are wanting to collect and read them all) then go for it. It’s still fun in the main.

Five Go Gluten Free, a parody

How many of you have seen these little parody books of the Famous Five stories of old? I used to adore those books as a child, having read and re-read all 21 of the stories and wishing so hard that I could be in their world. Well this parody series brings them not only into the modern day, but back down to Earth with a bump. This time the five are all grown up and dealing with bigger problems than Timmy eating the picnic they packed (okay that’s a pretty big problem, but still).

In this parody, Anne is given some presents for her birthday that the other three should have looked over more carefully. She reads the book she was given, as well as doing further research online, and decides that they all need to give up gluten (and pretty much everything else) to not kill themselves with their diet. This is an accurate and funny look at how modern fad diets are silly and strange, although there are obviously steps to take to be more healthy, unless you have a medical condition you don’t need to be this drastic with what you cut out of your diet!

The five struggle to keep eating in this way, becoming weaker as they don’t get enough nutrients and attempting to sneak food behind the others backs! It’s a fun little piece, only 104 pages long, and is great for any childhood fans of the five!

The Miniaturist, a review

I took this book with me on holiday a few years ago, on my old eReader (which has since died, RIP). When my family goes on holiday, we don’t sit by the pool, we’re constantly busy, always experiencing new things, and to be quite honest we need a rest once we get back to the UK! Which doesn’t tend to lend itself to reading, however, I couldn’t put this book down!

The plot didn’t end up being what I had expected. From the title and synopsis, I had assumed that there was going to be a larger focus on the paranormal and weird activities of the miniaturist and her figures. Instead, this is very much focused on Nella’s life after moving to the city of Amsterdam to live with her new husband. As was common in the time period this book is set in (1686), she doesn’t really know her new husband Johannes, and they don’t interact much as he is often out. However, he gives her a wedding present of a dolls house, one which is the size of a cabinet and is an accurate replica of their house.

To fill up the dolls house, Nella goes to a little shop down a side street and gets figurines of those who live in the house. This is where the synopsis seems a little inaccurate. It makes it feel like this book is going to delve into fantasy and magic with these figurines, and there is a little bit of that, but it really isn’t the focus of the book. As mentioned above, this book focuses instead on the trials and tribulations of living in this time period as a woman, and also Johannes troubles.

I do wish that the blurb wasn’t so misleading, as this did disappoint me a little, however, I still did massively enjoy the book and was enraptured from start to finish. Have you read this? Do you agree with my thoughts on the synopsis? Comment and tell me 🙂