Book Review: A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom

Brown Hair, Blue eyes and freckles doesn't make you a mutt. It makes you Scottish...looking.

How can you have a future if you can’t accept your past?
Mel Hannigan doesn’t have it easy. Mourning the death of her firework of a brother, trying to fit back into a school she’s been conspicuously absent from and struggling to deal with the loss of three friendships that used to mean everything. Struggling to deal with a condition that not even her closest friends know about.

So Mel tries to lock away her heart, to numb the highs and lows, to live quietly without hope – but also without pain. Until someone new shows her that it can be worth taking a risk, that opening up to life is what can make it glorious…

And that maybe, Mel can discover a tragic kind of wonderful of her very own.

The main character Mel has Bipolar Disorder and is in her second year of knowing she has it. This book does spend a lot of time going over what Bipolar disorder is and shows several characters with it that vary from Mel. I think a decent effect was made with this.

They were breaks from realities such as Mel going about being a freak for having very normal look aspects. Honestly, it was weird that she thought it was odd to have Blue eyes and pale skin, therefore freckles. Like who told her green eyes had anything to freckles (If reading this, Eric Lindstrom where did you get this)? Then someone else then mentions her appearance in this same detail. I think writers do fall in this trap sometimes.

So this is technically a romance book, but that's not really what I would sell it as and for me that's a good thing. I feel like it there because it has to be (old people set them up) and could have just been friends(I like friends). It fine though and definitely doesn't fall into the trap that 'love' cures all. There's a lot of friendships, there's a sprinkle of nice relationships throughout of the book, but I don't feel like the relationships were as developed as much as they should have been. Many they were too many things going on for the length of this book. There were lot of interesting dynamics, I think they could be in the one book and work, there's just wasn't enough dedication to them. I get why we did have so many characters with strong connections to Mel, I would have just liked more.

The novel is in the point of view of Mel, but I felt distanced to her and the other characters. They wrote well enough. I don't know if that due to the wall Mel has build surround her and the events we flashing back to a lot to, Or it could be I read it in one day because the world was on the bad side.

The title of this book is eye catching but it a bit generic and I don't think it suits the book that well. I have no alternative title suggestions so I'm the worst type of criticism bringer: says something is wrong and then runs away. 

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for beach beer.This book deals with mental illness well and has okay Bi, LBGT stuff floating about. This is a quick book to read, so I would recommend it if you like your light reads to have complex stuff going on. 

I got this book for review off NetGalley and was published by HarperCollins Children’s Books on 1st January 2017.

Book Review: Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Bad parenting in YA is as common as Love Triangles.

Madeline Whittier is allergic to the outside world. So allergic, in fact, that she has never left the house in all of her seventeen years. But when Olly moves in next door, and wants to talk to Maddie, tiny holes start to appear in the protective bubble her mother has built around her. Olly writes his IM address on a piece of paper, shows it at her window, and suddenly, a door opens. But does Maddie dare to step outside her comfort zone?

Everything, Everything is about the thrill and heartbreak that happens when we break out of our shell to do crazy, sometimes death-defying things for love. 

Lets start by stating the above summery has a small error and things don't quite go down in that way in the book. You're be shocked and horrified (okay, it's that there's no piece of paper. Also she has left the house, but she doesn't remember that). This plot isn't very unique and the plot is almost the exact same as a film, but reverse genders and a different tone. I won't say which one for spoilers but you can probably work out if you wanted to. I also feel like I have either read/heard about another book with characters with the same disorder.

The format of this book is my favourite part of this book.We have typical pose from the point of view of the Madeline with illustrations scatter throughout the book and emails, texts and post-it notes.

The characters themselves ain't great in personality department. I kinda equal the two main characters as two traits, Madeline is books and Olly is maths. Oh, I forgot that Olly is actually Green Arrow. I don't feel like explaining that reference. Their actual interactions are good, but these characters don't stand for themselves for me and feel flat. The relationship between Madeline and her mother doesn't sit right with me, especially towards the end of the book. I would have like more resolution with them.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa. This novel is not at all original and filled with clichés but it's done pretty well. It's a good light read, though I do feel it's trying to be more than that with the issues it has characters facing. Though, that could be interpreted as Yoon trying to make them more realistic. The ending is just too "perfect" for me to think of it as anything more.

I got this book off NetGalley for Review and it is being publish by Corgi Childrens on 27th August 2015.

Book Review: Horowitz Horror by Anthony Horowitz

So we meet again Horowitz Horror, you'll find that I'm even more horrifying now.


Welcome to a strange and twisted world where the spooky, the shocking, and the positively petrifying are lurking just out of sight.

A bus ride home ... turns into your worst nightmare.
A quaint country cottage ... has a grisly secret.
A man returns from holiday ... with bubbling skin and bloodshot eyes.

Horowitz Horror. It's all around you. Alive. Waiting.

Enter if you dare.

Horowitz Horror is collection of short stories, that I think was originally released as 3 stories per book but I originally read these stories as Horowitz Horror and More Horowitz Horror.  They have recently been released as just one book under Horowitz Horror (and now I have to make the hard decision over whether I will eventually ended up with double of the first stories). Seeing all the stories in the library (leaving my own copy of first part of the stories on the shelve at home), I thought I would give a reread and see how compares now that I'm no longer fourteen. I remembered like half of them properly.


I'm just going to go through each story:

1. Bath Night: It is a story of a haunted bath which is a bit genius. The whole vulnerable aspect of bathing and being naked. This is one of my favourite story first time I read it, it still good but it doesn't really touch me that much anymore. Isabel parents buy a bath that she just doesn't like and blood appears in the water but her parents don't see it. I think Isabell might have something wrong with her as apparently after three days without having a proper bath (while still washing), she notablely smells. I'm actually glad I re-read this as I missed the big twist the first time I read it. 3/5 stars as it just not as good as I remembered.
2. Killer Camera: The whole magic evil camera is a bit of cliché in the horror world as its been around since camera were invented. Everyone done it in some way. This one is slightly different as we get the background as to how the camera got that way. 4/5 stars.
3. Light Moves: Staying in the world of haunted technologies. This story features a computer haunted by the ghost of a sport journalist. Lets just say this computer gives the best horse racing tips this side of the afterlife, which cause the main character, Henry to do some underaged betting and get himself in trouble. 5/5 stars as it actually has good twist.
4. The Night Bus: Okay, here's a favourite featuring a tour of  Graveyards. It basically a twist on the ghost train idea, I think. Nick and his brother Jeremy find themselves stuck in the middle of London on Halloween (most of the story actually takes place after midnight). I just love this story. I gave this 5/5 stars because it awesome.
5. Harriet's Horrible Dream: This is the first story of terrible person/child getting what they deserved. Basically, Harriet is spoiled little brat, has a dream that her father goes bankrupt and since they have no room for her, he sends her away in a van to a restaurant called Sweeney Been. I never really liked this story, nor do I understand why use kids who ain't fully grown. Less meat. I grave it 2/5 stars as I just don't care for it.
6. Scared: Scared is surprisingly not that scary.  Its kinda like a Twilight Zone ep. The main character gets lost in the country, he's a dick and likes causing fear in his peers. It all ends happily for his mum. 3/5 stars because cause getting lost in a field means little to someone always lived surrounded by green background. Though, its get a whole star for good use of irony.
7. A Career in Computer Games: This is not the best story involving computer games, no that title goes to a  Midnight Library story. It aright, it another bad kid getting their comeuppance and teaches the lesson of not signing legal things without reading it first. It also the only story involving aliens, possibly. I gave it 3/5 stars for cone men on motorbikes.
8. The Man with the Yellow Face: A sexy young lad (this was originally written in 1999 btw) takes a photos of himself in mysterious photo booth in a train station. This is written first-person as reflection. With this reflectiveness you can feel what coming but its too much of a spoiler even to hint or joke about what happens. I gave 5/5 for a sexy train.
9. The Monkey's Ear: This is an amusing twist on the monkey fist story. You got dislikeable parents with their son Bart (not confuse with the one from Springfield) in a foreign market. Bart demands that his parents buy him a Monkey Ear which grants 4 wishes. As always these wishes goes astray and disaster is ensured. 5/5 stars for terrible parenting. This was where the first book ended and it was actually quite a strong ending, so good Editor choice there I guess.
10. The Hitchhiker: Okay, so now we're on to More Horror. I just want to say that I always thought the stories in More Horror were better. The Hitchhiker is clearly inspired by known stories but is meant to be a twist on them. Not sure how really talk about this without spoilering this story as it actually pretty simple plot.  4/5 stars for creative death method.
11. The Sound of Murder: This was my favourite story in More Horror. It actually pretty scary (in comparison) and comes in sort of chapters. I actually remember going to read it in Horowitz Horror (which I own) and realising that in it was in the other one (which I read from the school library). The main character Kate has been mostly deaf since birth and wears a hearing ad. Her hearing ad begins to play on up on the first day of term around her new teacher. She soon realises she can hear his thoughts. Kate only solution is to prove what he's thinking. I loved this story the first time and I still do. I gave it 5/5 stars for the Deaf hearing what others can't.
12.  Burnt: This is probably the most horror-frying (puns are so fun) of the stories. It involves no supernatural stuff and the main character is really just a witness to the horror. Its also in diary format and features Anthony Horrowitz's sons (seriously, I went WTF and checked). It another thing I miss when I read it the first time, it's not totally obvious, its just I happen to know something about Anthony Horowitz when these two kids said what their parents did, I went wait a second and confirmed my suspicion. Got to love me, solely on the fact I spent so much time on a single piece of Trivia. Tim has been sent on holiday with his Aunt Sara (blood relation) and Uncle Nigel. Uncle Nigel is a piece of work and obsessed with gaining a tan. Yes, the horror-frying thing happens to him with irony ensured. 5/5 stars for descriptive skin rebelling.
13.  Flight 715: If you've ever seen Final Destination, its that if death doesn't show up for revenge but not. Judith has a nightmare about her impending flight home and has to decide what to do about it.  Quite good. 5/5 stars for ending being twisty. Okay, its actually just because it's set in Canada.
14. Howard's End: This is awesome, because it kinda plays on what hell actually means and what it would be like. I won't say more. 5/5 stars for fluffy clouds.
15. The lift: This is quite a weird one, meaning that written from the sort of point of view of a retiring detective investigating his last case (You just couldn't stay away, could ya Horowitz?). I never brought into this story, just seems too unrealistic and it another one where the bad boy gets what he deserves for being an arse but with cannibals this time. Wait, we've had a bad kid and cannibals before. 3/5 stars for middle-age men.
16. The Phone Goes Dead: David's dad buys him a used mobile phone where the past owner died holding it causing some ghostly callers. Not much else to say, the ending does leave you thinking. I give it 4/5 for island streets.
17. Twist Cottage: Our last "Horowitz" story. This story involves a haunted cottage, sadly there wasn't really a twist to this story. What a waste of a title? Its also evil(ish) stepmother, sad father and unrealistic relationship. I never really understood why he married her or why she married him. Basically, it's hinted that she only went to uni, doing a course for a subject she didn't like to marry a professor. Most professors don't make that much money, I mean if I was gonna go digging, I wouldn't go there. I gave it 4/5 stars as it is actually quite good.
18. The Shortest Horror Story Ever Written: I'm not going to rate this as it not much of a story. I've just got to say, its either taking a while to get to me or they don't count library books as I've only ever read this story in lib books.

Overall, my only problem with this is that its a bit too middle class. Like it seems that the only non-middle class kids in this, are bad, which of course is sending a bad message. Though, if you've ever heard Anthony Horowitz talk, it petty obvious which class he is in so it probably just writing what he knows. I give this 5/5 stars for being as non-scary as I remember.

Book Review: Dead Romantic by C.J. Skuse

Frankly, this book isn't going to win any awards for being of great literature value. It basically, a reworking of Frankenstein into a modern setting and shallow values.

Stitching dead bodies:try wool

Camille wants to find the perfect boy, with an athlete's body and a poet's brain. But when she's mocked at a college party, she kows there isn't a boy alive who'll ever measure up. Enter Zoe, her brilliant but strange best friend, who takes biology homework to a whole new level. She can create Camille's dream boy, Frankenstein-stylee. But can she make him love her?

Camile has loved anything dead and has kept dead things as pets her whole childhood (including her ran over cat). Camile meets a mysterious girl, Zoe in Graveyard filling in a grave and becomes obsessed with her(with brief thoughts of homosexuality). Camile actually switches subjects to be in the same class as the girl.

Turns out Zoe is collecting body parts, in attempt to make a boy and restore her father shattered reputation. Camile decides to help, mainly because she needs a date to the college Halloween party to make that shallow boy who dating her ex (apparently)best friend, jealous. Because who doesn't love a pig who offers to take your (and every girls' in college) virginity to get it over with.

Camile refers to the Experiment as the Dead Sexy Boy and so her annoyances really begins. Camile isn't the cleverest person but sometimes this got really unbelievable. I mean, Camile is smart enough to have passed her GSES however, claims not to know that a crowbar is an object, and not just the verb of "Crowbarring". I'm petty sure she says the same thing two other times (obviously about other words) and definitely within 20 pages says it again. We get it pretty clearly that Camile is the local idiot that likes dead things.

At one point, Camile thinks Zoe has started to kill people for parts when one of the friends she abandons at the beginning of the books goes missing with her boyfriend, for no real reason. Also she does nothing about this suspicion anyway.

Oh, yeah this is a romance, right? I think its meant to be... The romance is typical and boring. Frankly (I'm really loving that word in this review) in terms of relationships, Zoe and Camile was most interesting but I don't think either like each other that much. Camile loves dead things, Zoe makes dead things alive, they are the perfect pair.

To sum up its a good book for a light read. It was funny at points and tried too hard at others. The ending was bit too cliffhangie( also very cliché) for something that doesn't deserve a sequel. It bit too unbelievable and the characters got annoying. I enjoyed it, brief boredom aside that made me skim through the last chapters before going back and finishing it properly. I did enjoy it, but that's about it. The idea was overdone, the characters don't learn anything, repeating habits (except on a bigger scale). Read it if you're not in the mood to think too much or get too emotionally invested.