Review: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Whilst there’s no doubt in my mind that after reading this book I’ll be picking up the next when it comes out, Wayward Son didn’t amaze me. The premise of this book was promising. I think the idea of looking at what happens after a hero’s journey “ends” was good because it’s true, we get to the end of a book series, film or TV show and just accept that it’s over and everybody has their happily ever after. Seeing Simon’s mental health improve throughout the course of this book definitely helped lift my own spirits and having the group together again to fight off forces meant this book was hard for me to put down, for sure.

The large fight at the end wasn’t a satisfying climax to this book. The quick switches between the characters that were narrating instead of making the scene fast-paced meant that I kept losing track of where each person was in the fight and the general progress of it. I think without the switching narration and with fewer components to the fight, it would have been much easier to grasp and made a more fitting conclusion to the book.

This next point might make it seem like I’m knit picking, but as a British person, the way Penelope, Baz and Simon spoke really bugged me. Things like Penelope not knowing what a tornado was and Simon saying he was “shagged out” (I know shagged can technically mean tired, but no person, British or otherwise, that I know uses it in that way and let me tell you, no one in this book was having the experience of the main meaning of this word from my recollection) really drew me out of the story. It was made more annoying because it was something that could have easily been fixed by switching phrases.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this book and my expectations from the first few chapters were very different to how the book ended up turning out. Initially it seemed to be more of an urban fantasy tale, but by the end there was no doubt that it was a suspenseful thriller. I ended up not being able to put this book down, especially towards the end when the mystery started to unravel, and I was constantly scared that any character would die.

That being said, even though there is no doubt in my mind that this book is a five star read because of the suspense and mystery, there were things that I disliked about the book. One of the things was the constant sexism throughout the book, which exuded from almost every character; though it can be partially be put down to the time when the book was set, at times it seemed to go a bit far. The second thing that I didn’t like was the casual mention that Daniel was going to die because it took all the suspense surrounding Daniel’s well being away from me and made me not only know that his death was coming but also that he would survive. Without that mention I would have been none the wiser and that part of the book wouldn’t have been spoiled.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

This was by far the best book in the Anne of Green Gables series. Rilla was such a well-developed character and you could so clearly see her change and progress throughout the book. This book made me laugh at some of the awkward moments, but it also managed to make me cry at the sadder moments. What made the difference in this book was the continuing thread of the war throughout the story. It gave a driving force to everything that happened and served to bind the characters together in a way that we didn’t get to see in the previous books. I could also clearly see the development of Montgomery’s writing from her previous books and I couldn’t be happier that this was the end to the series.

[Goodreads parallel]

Review: Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery

My rating: ⭐⭐

The start of this book was promising. With a new set of interesting characters, there was a chance to make a good story and an effective plot. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and there wasn’t enough of the likable qualities of Anne present to make up the deficit.

This is probably something that is edition specific, and I checked in the front to find that this should be the exact same version as that which was printed in 1919, but I absolutely hated the use of capitalised words within sentences for emphasis. It was something that wasn’t in previous books and seemed like a very unnecessary addition.

While the story of the Meredith’s was initially interesting, eventually it just became a repetition of the same story, but with a different child punishing themselves for stepping out of line. To keep interest in the plot, for me, Mr Meredith would have had to have come to his senses sooner and started acting like a proper father. However, the way the plot is, the story became far too predictable and boring.

There’s a lot more that I could say about this book, but I want to avoid ranting, so I’ll make one more comment, which fittingly is about the final part of the book. Out of nowhere on the last page, the narration starts to talk about the coming future, specifically the war. I completely understand the relevance of this, with the book being published in 1919, but it seemed completely out of place from the rest of the book and really drew me away from the story. When reading a book that forms part of a series, you want to be encouraged to stay in that world a little longer and by having that part tacked onto the end, it did the opposite for me.

If there wasn’t only one book left in the series, I would be severely tempted to stop reading after this book.

[Goodreads parallel]