Month: January 2024

The Similars by Rebecca Hanover follows Emmaline Chance as she begins another school year at a prestigious boarding school While battling the recent loss of her best friend Oliver. When Emmaline returns to school, she faces The Similars, who are illegal exact DNA clones of their originals who are students at Darkwood Academy. Emmaline’s grief over her late friend only gets worse when she meets Levi, Oliver’s Similar. With the introduction of The Similars violent attacks begin to take place on their originals and Emmaline is forced to band with The Similars to discover what is truly taking place at Darkwood Academy.

I truly enjoyed this book. The plot was rich and interesting and the characters had so much depth that you only uncover as the story goes on and Emmaline gets to know them. The world-building was well executed and never felt too much. the author had a way of revealing things slowly so it was never overwhelming and really brought you into the story. While the story deals with heavy topics such as grief, addiction, and violence the author still makes it feel like these characters are teenagers. The characters are never making the smartest decisions with perfect reasoning or focusing all their efforts on one thing because, in the end, they are still supposed to be teenagers. The author does a great job of adding unnecessary details to make sure that these do still feel like teenagers such as hazing, petty arguments, trivial beauty standards, mindless bickering, and sarcastic humor. I think that while these things are unnecessary to the plot they really add to the richness of the story.

While Rebecca Hanover does a great job of writing a story with great depth and characters there were still some things that I wish were talked about more in the story. It is stated from the beginning that Emmalime is heavily grieving the loss of her best friend and is abusing sleeping pills to cope. I felt like after a while of being angry at Levi for just existing Emmaline fell too quickly for him. I am not sure if this is because the author intended for it to be a familiar face so it should give her the same feelings or if the jump from enemies to lovers was glossed over to accentuate the plot. I also wish the grief and addiction were talked about or carried further into the book. I felt like after the recent death of someone so important you don’t just magically feel better and I felt as though simply flushing the pills wouldn’t have been the end of the addiction struggles.

I think this book has the potential to appeal to a broad audience. it is a Sci-fi book as well as a murder mystery. I think it is geared more towards older teens due to the heavy topics and violence but I felt like the book could be enjoyed by whoever wanted to read it.

“Alas, she had died, Again.”

Iris, a tightrope performer, is not as normal as she seems. She does not remember her past either, but has a sense on whether somethings familiar. Iris’s weird traits don’t stop there. She’s like a phoenix overseeing the whole crowd. And a trait that she shares with that bird is she can’t die. No matter the pain, she’s still going to be fine in the end. Iris wonders about her past for her whole life, well, she didn’t know her past and abilities was much more monstrous. A boy named Adam is curious about her too. promised to show Iris her passed. The two along with others enter a competition of trials and missions. Discovering more knowledge as they do. But little did Iris know he had more to information on her than herself. The chaos, friends, foes, secrets, mystery, all in which Iris had entered once she met Adam. Is she going to win the battle or will she get eaten by a bigger bird?

I’ve always loved reading books with secrets snd mysteries behind every corner. When I find out an information, I find out more that goes with it. Not to mention the mystery in those types of stories go deep. The Bones of Ruin was a phenomenal book, with great plot. It has twists and turns that got my head spinning. In addition to the deep mystery that follows throughout the story. It gave my mind a bit of a thinking frenzy, wondering what really happened to her. The book gives a scary, intimidating mood throughout. And the characters were all on point. They even had mysteries and secrets behind themselves as well, and as the story moves along there’s a part of a character that gets revealed, whether it’s Iris, Adam, or others. It always has my jaw drop to see a different side of the character or his/her story. It really is a touching book, and gets me excited on reading more mystery books.

Although it wasn’t really the book I expected to read. Especially the love/ love interests in this story was weird for me. I didn’t quite get a hold of whether there was one or not. I’d love it more if there was love story going on in this book. A quality in a book that I love, and other people too. Also, it may not apply to a lot of people, but I didn’t like the fact of the many characters in the book. 3 or 5 characters is my limit to a great story. If it’s more or less than that It’d either be boring or way to stressful to read, keeping up with characters. I’m not talking about background characters, or extras. I’m talking about side, and main characters. Too much can leave my brain a bit fuzzy, and confused on who’s who, or who the real main characters are. Lastly, the length of the book was a little too long for me. I like books between the radar of 100-200 or even 300 pages. I thought of trying this book to a gate way of me reading more longer books, but it wasn’t really for me.

My liking doesn’t much matter right now though. What matters is that someone who loves long stories and mystery find this book. Especially someone who like unnatural powers, and love a mystery book that is a little bit hard to figure out. This book also may target students who love fantasy. Go take a deep dive on this book, and find out what secrets Iris has to offer.

BOOK REVIEW

“Booked” of Kwame Alexander

This book is a novel that follows the jouney of a young boy named Nick Hall. Nick is passionate about soccer and poetry. The story explores his life and the typical challenges of adoloscense, such as love, friendship and academic pressure. When Nick’s parents announce their separations Nick will face the complexities of school life and soccer and poetry become emotional refuge. This book emphasizes the mportance of facing difficulties with determination and appreciating the power of words and relationships. The main characters in Kwame Alexander’s “Booked” include the protagonist, Nick Hall, along with his father, best friend and soccer coach.

The peculiarity of this book is the use of poetic form to tell the story. This poetic form can capture the emotion of the protagonist Nick and helps to create a unique and intense reading experience.

I really liked this book because I identified a little with Nick and his adolescent challenges. Like Nick I too experienced the separation of my parents and for me too football has always been not only a passion and sport but also a refuge. Furthermore I really like the protagonist Nick because I appreciate Nick’s resilience and his personal development that makes him a fantastic character.

I recomend it to everyone expecially to young people because this book shows that sport and friendship can really help to overcome the difficulties of growing up.

Do not read this book unless you want emotions you didn’t know you had twisted ways you didn’t know they could be.

Brandon Sanderson wrote Mistborn in such a way that you don’t know if you want to kill him, or hug him. Mistborn is a dark fantasy book with real world parallels. It is set in the Final Empire, ruled by the Lord Ruler. The empire is divided into noblemen and Skaa, the Skaa work as slaves for the noblemen, except for the thieving crews who hide themselves in buildings disguised as shops. The noblemen supposedly have pure blood, and some of them are Allomancers. Allomancers get powers from ‘burning’ different types of metals, most can only burn a select type, these are mistings, but some, the Mistborn, can burn all 10 metals. Skaa are not supposed to be able to be Allomancers, but there has been some interbreeding, causing some exceptions. This book is about a 17 year old girl named Vin who has spent her life on the streets as part of a Skaa thieving crew that scams noblemen, she is one of the exceptions.

Kelsier is a Mistborn who has spent his life as a leader of a thieving crew. Because his wife was killed by the Lord Ruler’s men he has been planing to topple the empire. To do this he gathers a select team, Dockson, the only sane one on the team, Breeze, a misting with the ability to sooth emotions, Ham, also a misting, but with the ability to enhance physical ability, Clubs, a misting with the ability to hide Allomacers from Seekers, Marsh, Kelsier’s brother, a misting with the ability to detect other Allomancers (a Seeker), and Vin, a young Mistborn discovering her powers, and the idea of trust. Kelsier devises a seemingly impossible plan to start a Skaa rebellion, a war among the noblemen, and topple the Final Empire.

This book leads you along like a dog follows a treat, once you’re in there’s no way out. There is no way to think of anything except this book, be prepared to forget your life, it doesn’t matter any more. You won’t care. The characters are developed and complicated to a degree to make you believe that they are real. This is not a story. It is someone’s life. This book makes you care about the characters and their goals, it gets you invested in their quest. This book should be read by any fantasy or science fiction fan, I would not recommend it to someone who doesn’t want to think. It is not an easy read. The language is fairly simple, but the ideas are not. There are some very heavy themes that some people may not want to deal with, such as slavery, sexual assault, nepotism, and faith.