christianreader | Kiwiria's March Madness

A Celtic Witch - Debora Geary*
A Lost Witch - Debora Geary*
Relistening to all of these... loving them as much as ever.

Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty, 4.5/5, 462 pages
This book took my breath away, and I found it very, very difficult to decide whether to give it 4 or 5 stars, so ended up splitting the difference as it was a tad slow to start and a tad quick to finish. Very minor nit-picking though!

Much like with "Leaning on a Spider's Web" by Jennifer Rees-Larcombe, you know going into it that somebody's going to die by the end of the book, but have no clue who. This adds an extra dimension to the book, as I couldn't help continuously guess who it might be, and pretty much no matter who, hope that I was wrong.

"Big Little Lies" is not your average chick-lit; it contains a lot more depth than that, and I think it's an important book to read, in order to show that it can happen to everybody, and you never know all the secrets of even your closest friends.

Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, 4/5, 528 pages
So far "Fangirl" has been my favourite of all of Rainbow Rowell's books, so when I heard she'd published a novel about Simon Snow, I knew I had to read it.

"Carry On" was every bit as readable as all of her other books, and did not disappoint. It was also every bit as much of a Harry Potter look-alike as I had expected, but since that was already established in "Fangirl", that didn't distract from my enjoyment either. It's everything Harry Potter would have been if it had been written with tongue stuck firmly in cheek.

I'm not entirely sure whether this was supposed to be Simon Snow fanfiction, or an actual Simon Snow novel. It doesn't really matter either way, but it was a tad disconcerting at first to read "the last book in a series" without having read the others. Still, RR managed nicely to tell you just enough for things to keep making sense, without boring the reader with far too much background.

It lacked the final pow to get me to rate it 5 stars, and I felt the end was a bit rushed, but all in all, an extremely entertaining book.

Calendar Girl: January - , 3/5, 136 pages
Every bit as trashy as "50 Shades of Grey", but a LOT more readable, and without any of the red flags. It's an okay read, but easily forgettable.

Knitlandia - Clara Parkes, 4/5, 160 pages
Awesome book to live vicariously through! Clara Parkes takes the reader to Rhinebeck, Knitting Vogue, the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, Maryland Sheep and Wool and a number of other places where there's yarn and knitting to be found.

The most common criticism of this book is that there's a lot of name-dropping going on, and that is very true. But as I was interested in reading about most of the people whose names Clara dropped, that didn't bother me at all.

"Knitlandia" is a nice combination of essays about going to festivals (both as a participant and a teacher), and behind-the-scenes insight into websites like Ravelry and Craftsy.

I wouldn't expect a non-knitter to like the book much (and possibly not even a knitter who wasn't part of the online knitting community), but for somebody like me, who's a member of Ravelry and Craftsy, and who loves knitting podcasts with all the background given there, it's a trip through my knitty bucket list.

The Girl with All the Gifts - M.R. Carey, 4.5/5, 435 pages
DEFINITELY not your average zombie novel... And I think I need to revisit my attitude of "not liking zombie novels". Between this, "Feed" and "The Forest of Hands and Teeth" I'm constantly being proven wrong.

But like I said - this is definitely not your run-of-the-mill zombies. Melanie is a fully cognisant human being, with the capacity to focus on other things than her hunger. She feels love, fear, empathy, is insanely intelligent and makes connections to other people. And it is those connections (not to mention, the way other people respond to her) that makes this such a fascinating book. I couldn't put it down.

I'm glad "The Girl with All the Gifts" turned out to be a stand-alone novel. 20 pages before the end, I wondered how on earth they were going to wrap everything up in time, but M. Carey took a completely different track than I had expected, making for an unusual, but totally satisfactory ending.

Lap Rat One - Andrea K. Höst, 4/5, 232 pages
Very obviously the middle book in a trilogy, and as such took me ages to read. Not because it was dull, but because most of it was spent figuring stuff out (about Muina mostly) and that meant there was a lot of literary 'waiting around'. I still loved Cass though, and found it interesting to read how she slowly got more and more settled in her new life.

And of course the end was very satisfying and gratifying, and meant I'll pick up the third book right away.

Caszandra - Andrea K. Höst, 4.5/5, 357 pages
Very satisfying ending to the trilogy (although I am glad there is a "Gratuitous Epilogue" as well!). I did think the whole Powerstone issue was solved surprisingly fast, and there are a lot of unanswered questions about those and the Cruzatch still, but I'm hoping some of those answers will be given in the epilogue. I also want to know more about Cass' family.

I loved the addition of Sen, Ys and Rye and how Sen 'adopted' Cass, without her really having much say in the matter. I liked that there was a lot of character development in this book - not just for Cass, but also for those around her. I felt like I got to know the other Sentari a lot better.

Really brilliant book I couldn't put down and finished over a weekend... quite a change from book 2 which took me 4 months!

(I did get annoyed with Andrea Höst using 'smex' for 'sex' though. I mean, really?! )

Gratuitous Epilogue - Andrea K. Höst, 5/5, 128 pages
Best gratuitous epilogue ever :) It didn't answer as many questions about the Powerstones etc. as I had hoped, but I hardly minded, because I LOVED how much to ended up focusing on Cass' family back in Australia... ever since finishing "Caszandra" I'd been slightly disappointed that we didn't get to see her Mum's reaction to the letter.

Having a diary entry per month worked out well, and allowed the epilogue to spread out over 2.5 years without seeming too drawn out. I loved the weddings and seeing the children grow... and the last chapter had me in tears.

Totally awesome ending to an excellent trilogy.

Awake - Natasha Preston, 4/5, 336 pages
I almost gave up on this book before I even started it, due to the surprisingly high number of 1-star reviews and DNF* shelvings on GoodReads. However, I'd requested an ARC from Netgalley, and figured I should at least give it a chance to make up my own mind.

I ended up being completely unable to put it down, and finished it in a day.

Mind you, I can still understand some of the things the other reviewers had problems with. The writing wasn't as tight as I could have hoped for, and there were obvious mistakes along the way (e.g. the main character was 16 when the book started and 15 when it ended...), but as it was an ARC, I could chalk that up to it being an uncorrected proof, and that these were issues that would (hopefully) be caught by an editor before actually being published.

But occasional sloppy writing aside, the plot just grabbed me from page 1 and wouldn't let me go. It had some awesome twists along the way, which left me gaping and I just had to know what happened next. The writing might have bothered me more in a less captivating book, but as it was, it diminished to just being something I noticed from time to time, but which didn't really pull me out of the book.

The quick romance didn't bother me. I've seen love at first sight happen too often to dismiss it as "unrealistic". It might not be the norm, but it's definitely not unheard of either.

So 5 stars for a gripping book I couldn't put down. Minus 1 star for the writing and slight plotholes near the end.

* Did-Not-Finish

Celebration of Discipline - Richard Foster, 3/5, 200 pages
Exceedingly weird... my opinion of this book keeps changing!

I read this in 2004 and absolutely adored it. Back then I'd have rated it 5+/5 because of how much it touched me.

I reread it in 2008 and was slightly disappointed that it couldn't live up to my expectations. I downgraded the rating to 4/5, as I thought it still started out really good and I learned a lot from the inward disciplines (prayer, meditation, study, fasting) but the outward (simplicity, solitude, serving and submission) and the corporate disciplines (confession, worship, guidance and celebration) seemed less important and less poignant to me than I felt they ought.

Then I reread it again this year, figuring that with lower expectations, it wouldn't disappoint me yet again... but that's exactly what it did. The contents of the book is still fine, but the writer's voice annoyed me exceedingly and I did think he made some arguments I didn't feel there was suitable reasoning behind.

Probably not a book I'll revisit - a shame, as I loved it SO much back when I first read it.

Kindred Spirits - Rainbow Rowell, 3.5/5,
A quick and amusing read. Definitely not as well-written as her other books, and kinda tacky in places, but it had me laughing out loud and nodding in recognition more than once, so I can forgive it for its cheesiness.

Books total: 39
Pages total: 8774

Book of the Month: The Girl with All the Gifts... although the Touchstone Trilogy comes close.
Biggest disappointment: Celebration of Discipline - mostly because it was such a let-down from what I had expected.