Review | All The Bright Places

Another book that I included in my 4 Summer Reads post which I read on my 2 week holiday was All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. I had heard not only Zoe, but many other people saying how good this book was and how important it is to the public views on mental health, so I knew I had to read it.

I don’t suffer from any mental health illnesses myself, but I have come across people in my life who do and I have seen stories on the news etc. about people all over the world with mental health illnesses and I knew how awful it can end for people or how hard it can be to live with. I think Jennifer hits the nail on the head with this book, it shows exactly how hard mental illness is to deal with as well as the extreme result of people going without the help and support they truly needed.

This book follows the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey, 2 people who both suffer from mental illnesses and they meet on the top of a clock tower, where they are both about to take their own life. That’s about all I’m going to say about the actual story line because 1. I could never do the story justice trying to tell it myself and 2. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who has not yet read it and would like to.

The relationship between the 2 characters grows throughout the book, and you feel like you are in that story with them, not just a reader. You get so emotionally attached to the characters in this book it is impossible to put the book down. Every chapter ends with you wanting to move onto the next straight away, because you’re constantly wanting to know more about the 2.

Another thing I love about this book is that it swaps between Theodore and Violet’s point of view throughout the whole story, so it isn’t just from one person’s perspective. You get to know both sides of the story and I think that allows you to become really involved with both Violet and Theodore, because you know what is going on in both their minds, not just one. I think that’s what made this book really interesting for me because most books are just from one person’s point of view or from the point of view on the outside, so you never really get to see inside the mind of more than one character. I think for a book about mental illness this is really important because you see the way the person acts in front of another person, but you also see how that person is feeling inside at each moment which is something totally unique.

Overall I absolutely loved this book and I think it took me about 3 or 4 days to read which shows I clearly enjoyed it as I honestly picked it up at every free moment I had, and then proceeded to struggle to put it down!

This is probably one of my favourite books now and I would definitely read it again, huge recommendation!

Have you read All The Bright Places? What did you think?

Love, Becca

-xoxo

Review | Girl Online

So when I went on holiday, I managed to read all 4 of the books I included in my 4 Summer Reads post within those 2 weeks – I know, I read really fast. And that post got a lot of comments about what people thought of some of the books I included and also that some of you wanted to know my opinion once I had finished them all. Now that I have done just that, I am starting to write my verdict for you, and Zoe’s novel is going to be the first.

Girl Online is everywhere, it was number 1 bestseller and I can totally understand why. Zoe Sugg syndrome is taking over the teenage girls of today, why? Who knows, she’s just a very likeable person I guess! This book sold more copies than that of J.K. Rowling I do believe, in a very short space of time. Again, I can completely understand why.

At first I was really unsure because a few of my friends had started to read this long before me and said they had struggled to get into it and thought it was aimed more at the younger spectrum of Zoe’s fandom. I was really disappointed when I heard this to be honest, but I went ahead and read it anyway because Zoe has been my idol for a really long time now and I really wanted to read her first novel because it was a really proud moment for me as someone who has followed her on this journey since pretty much the beginning.

I know I’m super late to the bandwagon on this book because the second one is coming out very, very soon, but I’ve had this book for ages I just never got round to reading it with revision and exams. However, now I have, here you go!

I absolutely loved it. It’s honestly one of the best books I’ve read, honest. And I’m not just saying that because I love Zoe so much, it was totally unexpected. The blurb says that Noah has a secret that could threaten Penny’s alias but I never imagined Noah’s secret being what it was and that made the book super exciting for me.

It is really your typical teen love novel but I’m a sucker for those! I always have been! I grew up reading Jaqueline Wilson and other authors like her so this book reminded me a lot of those. I think Zoe also read a lot of Jaqueline Wilson growing up if I remember rightly, so maybe she wanted to try and recreate that kind of style in her own way, I don’t know maybe she didn’t.

I think along with anyone else who has read this book fell in love with Noah. He is just the dream boy in a love story and I think most teenage girls would fall for that character. I also felt like I could relate to Penny in some ways. Of course Penny has extreme anxiety which is where her blog started and I am lucky to not suffer from anxiety to this extremity, but the blogging thing and her not wanting people to find out about it, I could really relate to that part. When I first started my blog I didn’t want anyone to find out, Penny didn’t want anyone to know about hers either. I think most people who are blog owners probably felt this way at the very begging, or even still now. So it’s very relatable to people of the blogging world. I think that allows you to get closer to the character and become more a part of the story than just someone sitting watching from a distance.

I think it took me about 4 days to read this book in total, so you could say I enjoyed it a little bit. I honestly couldn’t take my head out of it! I don’t want to say too much about the story itself because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t yet read this incredible book, but if you haven’t I highly recommend you do.

As for the thing I said earlier about it being aimed at the younger spectrum of Zoe’s audience, I think she has had to be careful and very wary of the age of a lot of her viewers. Zoe’s videos are so popular and she has such a broad range of people watching, and a lot of them are very young. Zoe will have had to think a lot about this while she was writing this book because she can’t make it too mature as you can guarantee these younger viewers will want to read her book. However, she has still catered for the teenage viewers in my opinion, because in places it’s quite an adult/teenage love story, but not in a way that it’s inappropriate for her younger viewers. What I’m trying to say here is yes I can understand if you maybe found this book a little immature for your age if your about 15 or 16 like me, but she has of course had to be careful about the adult content she included.

As for Girl Online On Tour, I am super excited to read it and I honestly can’t wait for it to come out! Girl Online doesn’t end on a cliff-hanger as such, it just leaves you wanting to know more about the lives of Penny and Noah and what happens to them afterwards. Thank you Zoe for writing a second book and not leaving us clueless as to where the pair goes after Girl Online.

That’s about all I have to say about Girl Online but as I say, if you haven’t yet read it and you like a good teenage romance, I recommend this book to you because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Until next time!

Have you read Girl Online? What did you think? 

Love, Becca

-xoxo

Review | The Maze Runner Sequel

This is a post I've been promising to write since about Christmas? Which was when I received the first 3 books and so I promised a full review of the sequel once I had finished, so now I'm finished, here it is! 

So the sequel consists of 4 books, including the prequel:

The Maze Runner

The Scorch Trials

The Death Cure

The Kill Order (prequel)

They are written by James Dashner who honestly, I didn't know of before I read these books. However, now having read these 4 books I would definitely consider reading more of his work if the topic of the book interested me. 

At first I wasn't too sure if I was going to enjoy them, but I had heard so many good things about the first book more specifically, and of course I couldn't just leave it after the first book the way things end!

The books carry a really good, but realistically quite far fetched story line. But we all love a bit of far fetched stuff in books, that's the fun of fiction!

Anyway, enough rambling I'm going to discuss each book in a little bit of detail, but without giving the whole story away! 

The Maze Runner

Thomas has had all of his memories wiped, the only thing he knows is his name. He arrives in a place very unfamiliar where hundreds of other teenage boys are living, the Glade. Thomas goes through a lot to befriend the other boys in the Glade being the newbie and all. 

None of the other boys know where they are, or why they're there. All they know is they've been put there by someone and there's no way out unless you find your way out of the maze, but who can find their way out?

So that's all I'm going to really say about the plot line because I don't want to give too much away! I really enjoyed this, I honestly couldn't put it down which for me is always a good thing about a book. I was constantly wanting to read on, every chapter leaves you on a huge cliffhanger making it impossible to read any less than "just one more".

There is also a huge plot twist at the end which I won't go into much detail about because I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it, but because of that plot twist I moved straight onto book 2 after finishing book 1 because I couldn't wait to find out more! 

This has of course been made into a film, which I actually haven't seen. I wanted to read all of the books before I let myself watch any of the films, I don't know why but if there's a book and a film the book always comes first with me. Anyone else like that? Let me know what the film is like if you've seen it! And if you have seen the film but you haven't read the book, give it a read. I always find things that are in the book are always missed out in the film so see what's different! 

The Scorch Trials

So they thought they'd finished when they escaped the maze, but then another challenge is thrown their way, but why? They spend most of their time travelling through the next challenge and wondering why and who put them there. 

They end up back in the real world, but it's not how they thought it would be because of the Sun Flares, and the Flare - an infection that is wiping out the human race, quickly. 

It's a matter of life and death, but all of the Gladers stick together to survive and protect each other. Frightened they're going to become just as mentally disturbed as the people infected by the Flare.

Again, I absolutely loved the second book. Kept me hooked all the way through and again I found it really hard to put down. There is always something new happening that keeps you right on the edge of your seat all the way through. 

All the way through you're trying to work it out yourself, which for some people may be frustrating but I actually like books where I actually have to try and get my head around the situation myself in order to understand what's going on. It makes me feel much more involved, and this book does just that. 

You begin to connect with Thomas and some of the other main characters, there are even some moments that tug on the heart strings, which I wasn't expecting for books like this. 

Some people say this book in the series dragged for them a little bit, and I can understand that in a way but I guess that all depends on how emotionally involved you are in the story and with the characters. In case you haven't already guessed, when I read a book I literally feel like I'm a character in it and I probably get into it a little bit too much sometimes...

The Death Cure

Now that the trials are over, the Gladers have the option to have their memories completely restored, but who will take the offer? However, after reading the other 2 books and this one, Thomas has already started to remember things from his life before the Glade and he remembers more than he can handle, though WICKED don't know that. 

How many of the Gladers will survive the Flare? How many are immune? Do they find a cure for the Flare? 

I wasn't as crazy about this book as I was about the last 2, but I did still really enjoy it. It pretty much answers all of the questions that you have had through the books so far, which is nice because I don't like it when questions are left unanswered. 

I think it ends the series really well by answering all of the questions and getting a happy ending, but I would've maybe liked something at the end like a year later or 10 years later, because it would be nice to know what happens to the characters after the grand finale.

For me, I felt this one out of the 3 dragged the most, but that was only because it took me so long to get through the books due to GCSEs I was starting to get impatient and wanted to know the answers. However, I guess that if you had the time to be reading this for a good length of time each day you'd probably be okay for this, I just get impatient and after 3 books, my patience was being tested a little! Although, having said this I think it was still quite gripping because I kept wanting to read it, I didn't give up on it which is what I do if I'm really just not enjoying a book so that says something I suppose.

The Kill Order (prequel)

So this is based 13 years before Thomas enters the Glade, and it is a story following 2 main characters, Mark and Trina, and some other people too. This is just when the Sun Flares are starting and the Flare has been released causing the virus to spread and get more devastating as it spreads from body to body.

It follows Mark and Trina in the quest to survive and try to help save the world from complete extinction, but how will they do it and how many people have to die before they get there?

This is the one that I just recently finished, as in this week. I honestly can't tell you how disappointed I was with this, that's my honest opinion. The fact that it was about completely different people to the other 3 books to start with really threw me off, but I wanted to keep reading because I wanted an explanation for everything. I assumed it was all going to become obvious like Thomas was Mark and Trina's son or something along those lines, no. I was wrong. 

I actually had to google the ending of this book because I really didn't get the ending of it at all. It skipped forward to when Thomas was taken from his mother but before that some characters went through a Flat Trans but it wasn't explained who they were in relevance to the other 3 books if you get what I mean? 

I now understand after googling it, but it wasn't obvious to me at all and in all honesty, a bit of a let down. It comes out that someone changes their name from The Kill Order to a different name, one of a character in the other 3 books. All very confusing but I guess that's the way he wanted to end his book. I personally was disappointed with it, just like I was with the end of Mockingjay but I guess life goes on, eh.

So that's my review and opinions on all 4 books of the sequel. I hope you enjoyed it. If you've read the books, let me know what you thought, whether you agree with the disappointing ending... If you haven't read them, I recommend you do if you're a bit of a thrill-seeker, but you may want to consider the last book before buying it because as I said, it's about completely different people really, although one of them turns out not to be in the end... Oh well. Give it a try if you fancy it!

Love, Becca

-xoxo