Book Review: Marly's Ghost by David Levithan

Tiny and Tim, really?

A remix of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with a Valentine’s twist

When Ben’s girlfriend, Marly, dies, he feels his life is over and the prospect of Valentine’s day without her fills him with bitterness. But then Marly arrives – or at least, her ghost does – along with three other spirits. Now Ben must take a journey through Valentines past, present and future – and what he learns will change him forever.

I thought this was new released, turns out it was first published 10 years ago. It's new to me and probably you too if your reading this review. There's nothing to age it anyway, well until holographic photos become the standard.

This book is literally a remix of A Christmas Carol while that's interesting, there are moments when the language used does not sound anything like how a teenager would speak now or the 00s so its odd and almost pulls you out the story because of how noticeable it is. For example, the structure of the sentences and use of exclamation  marks are just not the way people talk or write now (you know that I mention it, its odd that exclamation  points have became so underused now). This becomes really bad half way through the book. Ben basically becomes regretfully old man from the early Victorian era. I've never actually read A Christmas Carol but I can tell when the lines have came from the original text.

Also I just can't over that Tiny and Tim existed as characters. When ever these two show up, I'm just completely taken out of the story due to the ridiculous of everyone calling Tiny, Tiny. I know they called that so you know that they the Tiny Tim of this version but still. I can't get over it, I can't move on. It ruined all the scenes these characters are mentioned or seen for me because in the back of my head I was going "WHY? Really?"

There is also illustrations in this book by Brian Selznick in the style of the original illustrations of A Christmas Carol and this works way better than reworking of the text. They pretty cool and go really well with what's being described.

This book deals with things such as grief and did I did like the relationships between the main characters and you get feeling the lost with them. Though, I found as the language the more disconnected I felt with Ben.

Overall, I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars for carnations. It nice quick read and if you want to read A Valentine's Carol then this is the book for you. Also if haven't read anything by David Levithan yet then I wouldn't suggest starting here as I don't feel like this is a true glimpse of him. I should probably get over my hang up of Tiny.

I got this book for review off netgalley. It being published by Electric Monkey on 8th January 2015.

Book Review: The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (and art by Eddie Campbell)

Because if a cave doesn't have skull on it, don't go in it.


You ask me if I can forgive myself?
I can forgive myself . . .

Guys in kilts with questionable morals go on a quest to find a cave filled with Treasure with terrible and sad things involved.

So this is a short story, accomped with illustrations. It's basically a picture book for adults so what not to love. 

The illustration really go well with the story. They're pretty and sometimes creepy. (To think I studied Art.)

Since this is a short story, I can't really say much without it being spoilerly. I liked it. It features family, murder and the Scottish Highlands. It well written and I really like the ending. It was sort of perfect and twisted.

Overall, I gave it 5 out of 5 stars for just deserts. It typical Neil Gaiman goodness with awesome illustrations. Also the action book production is nice with fabric on the spine.

Book Revirew: Ink by Amanda Sun

JAPAN! DRAWINGS THAT COME TO LIFE! YES! WANT!

Ink is in their blood

On the heels of a family tragedy, Katie Greene must move halfway across the world. Stuck with her aunt in Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn’t know the language, she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks, and she can’t seem to get the hang of taking her shoes off whenever she enters a building.

When Katie meets aloof but gorgeous Tomohiro, the star of the school’s kendo team, she is intrigued by him... and a little scared. His tough attitude seems meant to keep her at a distance, and when they’re near each other, strange things happen. Pens explode. Ink drips from nowhere. And unless Katie is seeing things, drawings
come to life.

Somehow Tomo is connected to the kami, powerful ancient beings who once ruled Japan—and as feelings develop between Katie and Tomo, things begin to spiral out of control. The wrong people are starting to ask questions, and if they discover the truth, no one will be safe.

I heard about this book last year so I was rather excited to see it on Netgalley/it coming out (Came out 5th July UK). I think I might have hype this book too much to myself as I just loved the idea of it. I have a soft spot for Japan and as I love art/illustration I love supernatural/powers involving drawings. It's a good book but its wasn't as good as I was hoping. I think I just wanted Amazing, but it wasn't that level of awesome.

This book contains drawings in appropriate places that correspond to the story. The also lovely art on the chapter's head and these tiny drawings in the corners of the page. So I got this off Netgallery (as I kinda said above), but I'm planning to eventually get my own copy of this book and this one of the reason. Also this is a start of a series and I definitely want to read the next book.

The characters were all very likable, though the main character Katie does a bit of a stalker issue. I really liked Katie best friends Yuki and Tanaka. I like Tomohiro as character/person, but not sure what I think of romantic interest. Though, romance doesn't really do much for me to begin with. Katie herself quite a strong character, she been through a lot of with the sudden death of her mother and the whole moving to a very foreign country. Also her aunt is very sweet.

Japanese is sprinkle through out the book which I like quite like. Though that might only because I briefly attempted to learn Japanese to watch Anime without subtitles and know what some Japanese words mean before reading 'Ink'. Also it plays into the whole Katie being from another country and natively speaks another language. Its kinda weird since it's English speaking book but the characters are actually speaking Japanese for majority of the book. I think that sentence made sense.

So I gave this book 4/5 stars and I plan to continue the series. You can currently find the prequel novella 'Shadow' (and the first chapter of Ink) to read on Wattpad. I actually sort of like the prequel more as you got Tomohiro point of view too and I gave it 5/5 stars.

I also made a video review for this book on my booktube channel where you can hearing me talking about it and attempting to speak Japanese.