Gemma

The Raven Boys is a low fantasy young adult novel about four private schoolboys in Virginia and Blue, the psychic's daughter. I have heard about this series from probably everyone I know who reads and from half of the booktube community I follow. I decided to pick it up after being recommended it so many times over the years because I felt I needed to know finally if it was exactly as good as everyone said it was or if I'd find another over hyped YA novel.

And as with the trend this year, I immensely enjoyed the book. We begin focusing on Blue, the daughter of the local psychic in Henrietta, as she goes on the annual trip to the local churchyard to record the names of everyone in the town who will die in the next twelve months. The novel goes on to follow her as she meets the Aglionby boys and discovers their search for the Welsh king.

I found the plot of the book to be intriguing, however slow to start. For the first half of the book I didn't know when things would begin to happen. While this wasn't a negative experience as vital the backstory and characterisation was done in this half it did feel slow. In fact, at one point in my status updates I lamented that one of the male characters felt surplus to requirement as he had rarely been involved in the plot so far. This was quickly corrected as the second half of the novel ramped up the pace. The characters are actually where I think the book excels. The book is in the third person perspective, which I prefer, and it spends time in all of the main character's heads but focuses mainly on three. Of these three, Adam and Gansey were my favourite characters. The setting felt equally real, and I have no faults with the book there. My only complaint was that the author regularly used flowery writing to describe various things or feelings throughout the book that made absolutely no sense.

All in all, a pleasant surprise of a book.

The Cruel Prince ???????????????The Wicked King ???????????????

I read the sequel to The Cruel Prince immediately after finishing the first book in the series. I think that speaks volumes for how much I enjoyed this series as I finished both books within a few days of starting the series.

The Wicked King maintained the quality I found in the first book. The fae were still as tricky and cruel throughout the story, the plot kept on being complex and surprising, and I really enjoyed a lot of consequences from the first book coming to land in this one. Jude had gained power for herself over the course of the first book, and some of the trades she made to get herself this power helped her in the second one - but quite a few came back to bite her in the ass.

Another YA series I would highly reccomend, and the ending of the second book was fantastic!

When it comes to this series so far, I adore the books while I'm reading them and have no interest in picking them up otherwise. For me this makes a difficult book to rate.

The writing is more like poetry than any other book that I have read. It is this quality that gives the book such a vivid atmosphere and strong characterisation. The audiobook was a fantastic addition to my reading experience as it added to the atmosphere that the book built and kept me immersed in the story.

While I found the first book to be a little slow, the pace of the second book kept increasing until the finale kept me on the edge of my seat.

I would really recommend this series.

A Game of Thrones ???????????????A Clash of Kings ???????????????A Storm of Swords: (Part 1) Steel and Snow ???????????????A Storm of Swords: (Part 2) Blood and Gold ???????????????

I am so glad this book was split into two volumes in the UK because I had such incredibly different reading experiences with each volume. The first volume got a three star review from me which translated roughly into a slow moving book with insufficient plot to distract me from the repetitive nature of GRRM???s writing. I wouldn???t give any of the books in this series less than three however because they are of a decent quality when it comes to the technical aspects of writing and plotting.

As you can expect, this second volume really ramped up the plot. I checked, and events which occur in this volume span season three and four of the tv show. Plot points I did not remember or new ones that are ignored in the show have begun to show themselves and I am excited and ready for the next book.

Also this book completes my personal challenge of reading 50% of ASOIAF in 2018, as I was counting each volume individually.

I first read this series when I was in secondary school, a couple of friends and myself read the first two books pretty quickly and loved them. I think my fourteenth birthday party was watching the movie with those friends (we almost universally hated it) and I never got round to finishing the third book. At this point, there are four books in the series and a set of short stories due to be published. It's been around ten years since I read the series and I never finsihed it, so I decided I would begin a re-read to finally catch up.

Wow, my memory was exaggerating how good this first book was. I want to stress that the author wrote this book around the age I was when I read it, and I do feel that his age should be taken into account. Eragon as a book has not been fleshed out, and a lot of the story felt bare. There where time skips to get to the next plot relevant moment, and a lack of development in the setting or characters. Another reviewer pointed out the heavy influnces of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which I can definately agree with. I would also like to highlight the audiobook, which is how I read it. The audiobook probably ruined a large chunk of my enjoyment as the narrator gave Saphira an inexplicable voice and made a small portion of the characters Welsh?? I would not reccomenf the audiobook.

I think the series gets better in the later books, and I will report back with reviews as I intend on finally finishing this series.

The Rogue, the second book in a secondary trilogy from Canavan, stagnates and thoroughly suffers from middle book syndrome. This second trilogy follows the next generation of characters from the Black Magician trilogy that I loved so much in my teenage years.

The reason I feel so neutral about this book is the fact that the plot stagnates a lot. We set up a lot of relationships and built up a lot more of the world that the story in either trilogy had not exposed the reader to before. Otherwise, the story in this second book isn't all that memorable. Canavan's writing is solid, and a pleasure to read. This second trilogy still has Sonea as a main character, which was one of my favourite aspects of the first trilogy. I will really miss reading her chapters at the end of this series.

Overall, I am beginning think this second trilogy isn't essential to your reading experience of the world of the Black Magician trilogy.