Favourites: October 2015

Walker Blogger Brunch

At the beginning of the months I was invited back to Walker Books for their Blogger Brunch to showcase some of their 2016 titles. Three lovely authors were in attendance – Alison Goodman, Nat Luurtsema and Richard Curti – who presented their new novels, The Dark Days Club, Goldfish and Maladapted respectively. We had a lovely morning of cream tea and sandwiches and came away with a very exciting goody bag!

Fall out Boy at Wembley

I've loved Fall Out Boy since I was about 14 so it was a pleasure to see them live again. Both times I've seen them they’ve played a variety of songs from across their seven albums and I loved every minute, especially when they pop up at the back of the stadium on a little stage and perform a few acoustic songs. And I was so close! Again! I’m far too short and icky about personal space to get in the crowd anymore so it’s lovely when a band give some attention to the back of the crowd. It’s also nice to be able to have a nice cold cider without risking pouring it all over myself!

Warped Tour

Warped Tour is a huge deal in the US with a whole host of bands travelling the country to perform for a good few months and in 2012 it was brought over here. Then again in 2013 and this year. The line-up hasn’t yet bettered 2012, but it was still brilliant fun. It’s an all day festival at Alexandra Palace featuring rock, punk pop and metal bands – perfect! I saw some new to me bands and saw Black Veil Brides again who played through some technical difficulties and Andy Biersack distracted us by playing the entire show without a shirt on.

Afternoon Tea with Julie Kagawa at Kettner’s

The lovelies at Midas PR and Mira Ink invited me and two other bloggers, Daphne (Winged Reviews) and Sarah (Sarah’s Reviews), to have afternoon tea at the gorgeous Kettner’s with Julie Kagawa to celebrate the upcoming release of The Iron Warrior. It was so lovely to have some informal, relaxed time with a favourite author and what a place to do it! It was a lot of fun and rather special for a Monday.

#MagicandMayhem with Leigh Bardugo

After we’d filled up on afternoon tea, Sarah and I headed over to Waterstones Piccadilly for a spot of #MagciandMayhem with Leigh Bardugo! Leigh was interviewed by the very lovely Katherine Webber, who works at Booktrust and will be a 2016 debut author, and it was such a fun event. There were crow balloons, special biscuits (although I didn’t get one L) and so many laughs – Leigh is brilliantly funny.

Sophie 

From Page to Screen: The Martian

RELEASED: 30^th September 2015

RUNNING TIME: 144mins

RATING: 12A

MATT DAMON ~ Mark Watney

JESSICA CHASTAIN ~ Commander Lewis

KRISTEN WIIG ~ Annie Montrose

JEFF DANIELS ~ Teddy Sanders

MICHAEL PENA ~ Rick Martinez

SEAN BEAN ~ Mitch Henderson

KATE MARA ~ Beth Johanssen

SEBASTIAN STAN ~ Chris Beck

CHIWETEL EJIOFOR ~ Vincent Kapoor

MACKENZIE DAVIES ~ Mindy Park

DONALD GLOVER ~ Rich Purnell

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

I'm stranded on Mars.

I have no way to communicate with Earth.

I’m in a Habitat designed to last 31 days.

If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.

So yeah. I'm screwed.

TRAILER

VERDICT

I succumbed to the pressure and finally read The Martian a few weeks ago and I completely loved it; I knew I'd have to see the film before it left the cinema! And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The movie adaptation stays remarkably true to the book. The novel is written in Mark’s log entries at the Hab, storing his experiences on Mars for the next manned crew to watch when they arrive if he doesn’t make it to meet them. As that would be a pretty boring film, I expected them to cut the log entries out entirely but they were worked into Mark’s daily life on mars really well. They provided a nice balance of the feeling of direct address and the epic scope of a movie set on the red planet.

And what an epic scope. This film looks incredible. The skyscapes across the Martian landscape are breathtaking and it felt like a clearer, most distinct version of what we’ve seen in real pictures; the spaceships and probes were huge and magnificent; the tech was super cool, but still felt like it wasn’t too outlandish for something happening in the not too distant future and quite frankly, it made me hope that space tourism will happen in my lifetime (and budget). This is such a perfect movie for fans of space, if only for the practical elements on living on Mars, even if the science and maths is hugely reduced from the novel.

Sadly, I also didn’t find it nearly as funny. I smiled fairly frequently but there was very little of Mark laugh out loud dryness, his sarcasm and wit. I really don’t think Matt Damon is that great with comedy as he seemed a little awkward when he did attempt it and Mark’s type of comedy I think is more Chris Pratt-style. The humour and narrative voice was the real strong point of the novel for me so I was a little disappointed it didn’t translate into the film properly. I wonder if I’ll feel a little differently when I watch it again when it comes out on DVD (yeah, it’s definitely worth buying!) as there’ll be a little more distance between the two.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Martian and I highly recommend it if you’ve read the book or not! Lots of fun and it looks incredible.

Sophie 

Books I Couldn't Finish (8)

I used to finish every book I started, whether I was enjoying it or not. But life is short. I’ve realised that I don’t have time for books I’m not full involved in any longer so if I don’t like something or don’t connect with it as much as I want to, I’ll put it aside. It still makes me feel guilty though, especially if I received them for review so I still want to talk about them, explain why I didn’t like them. Here are the most recent books I DNF-ed.

Get Started in Writing Young Adult Fiction, Juliet Mushens

Not finishing Juliet Mushens’ debut actually had nothing to do with anything I disliked or didn’t agree with, it was just that everything I read in the beginning was stuff I already knew. This guide starts at the very basics, for people who don’t even really know anything about YA or the publishing industry. It builds up from scratch and teaches how to generate ideas, to write, the edit and to get a book published. All of the tips, exercises and author quotes were brilliant and useful but I felt that most of what Mushens said I had already learnt when studying Creative Writing at university. This is perfect for people who are starting at the bottom and I will definitely recommend it to those people, it just felt an unnecessary read to me.

Not That Easy, Radhika Sanghani

Now this is a book that I could have finished. I would have pushed through it and it probably would have gone quite quickly, but the only reason would be to finish it, not out of enjoyment. In Virgin, Ellie was adorably hapless and I really connected with her, but fast forward year and she’s graduated from university and is on an unpaid magazine internship – and her mum is paying for her to live in East London in a house share. She’s become selfish, entitled and whiny. I just wanted her to get over herself. She was in an incredibly privileged position and all she could do was whine about it – it made me irritated, and then dislike her. I didn’t care about her or her plight to get laid.

I mostly hated how much her self-worth relied on her being valued and desired by men; it was all she thought and cared about. That’s a dangerous, wrong message to send out to the teen girls that would flock to a book like this. I also found the approach to slut shaming and the use of the word slut uncomfortable, even as Ellie and her friends attempted to ‘reclaim’ it – it still felt like judgement was being passed to me.

Mosquitoland, David Arnold

From the very beginning of this book I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. With every sentence there’s this sense of the Arnold trying so, so hard to be quirky, overtly intelligent and, well, John Green-like. H didn’t pull it off for me. It was too much. It’s such a shame as I was really looking forward to this and I think the premise and Mim as a character had so much potential, there was just so much forced on it stylistically and thematically that it just didn’t work. And yet, saying that, I think this will be lapped up by fans of John Green and younger readers who are maybe newer to YA than I am.

Sophie 

First & Then, Emma Mills

Pages: 267

Publisher: Henry Holt

Release Date: 8^th October 2015

Edition: US hardback, purchased

Devon Tennyson wouldn’t change a thing. She's happy silently crushing on her best friend Cas and blissfully ignoring the future after high school. But the universe has other plans. It delivers Devon’s cousin Foster, an unrepentant social outlier with a surprising talent, and the obnoxiously superior and maddeningly attractive jock Ezra right where she doesn’t want them – first into her gym class and then into every other aspect of her life.

With wit, heart, and humour to spare, First & Then is a contemporary novel about falling in love – with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

I was so looking forward to First & Then. I’m a huge fan of Emma’s videos and YouTube channel, Elmify, and I’m a sucker for a good contemporary, but I was rather disappointed.

Devon is pretty ordinary. She has a mom and a dad; a crush on her best friend; her grades are fine and nothing particularly extraordinary has ever happened her. She has no special skills or interests and she doesn’t know what she wants to study at college, or if she even wants to go. After her cousin, Foster, comes to stay with her after his mum is no longer able to look after him, everything changes.

I didn’t really feel anything for Devon at all and I actually struggled to continue reading for the first third of the novel; I didn’t connect to her in any way and I wasn’t really that interested in her. The same went for the love interest Ezra. I wasn’t shipping them and I didn’t feel anything between them at all. It was all a bit meh. Foster is by far the most interesting character in First & Then and I actually would have preferred to hear his story than Devon’s. There’s an intense family history with grief, trauma and abandonment issues with Foster and I really liked how they enabled him to connect with Ezra. That friendship is a lot more compelling than all of the others, with the exception of Devon and Foster.

There’s a lot of focus on American football as well as on Devon and Foster’s burgeoning sibling relationship. I really don’t care for football and there were a lot of scenes set at football games and practice and I just skimmed those scenes as it really doesn’t interest me at all. I also found the character of Marabelle (stupid name as well) really discomfiting. She's 15 and pregnant, but the issue with her character is how absent she is, how embroiled in her own world and she felt like the type of person that would be seen as a vulnerable young person and I didn’t like it at all. Those issues weren’t talked about at all, she was just there, using ‘Baby’ as a mouthpiece for any opinions, likes or dislikes she had. As I said, uncomfortable. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Marabelle if you’ve read First & Then.

I think that Emma Mills has feel potential, especially with the range of topics she worked into the lives of her characters, and I can only hope that she gets better and better over time.

Sophie 

Letterbox Love #110

Letterbox Love is a way to give all of the books I receive for review some exposure. Summaries are taken from the cover, or Amazon/NetGalley/Goodreads in the case of e-books, unless otherwise stated.

When Everything Feels Like the Movies, Raziel Reid (proof)

School is like a film set. There’s The Crew who make things happen; The Extras who fill empty spaces in rows of desks; and The Movie Stars, who everyone wants to tag in their Facebook photos.

But flamboyant Jude Rothesay, who lives for Louboutins and celebrity magazines, doesn’t fit into any of these categories Jude is the boy who wants to burn the whole damn set down…but not until he gets Luke Morris to be his date to the Valentine’s Day dance.

Beautiful, screwed-up, queer – Jude is a young man determined to blow kisses to bigots and defy a lifetime of neglect through glamour. He’ll wear whatever he wants, sleep with whomever he likes and live his life like he’s the star of the show.

This sounds like it could be completely wonderful. Look for my review in February! Thanks Atom!

Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper, Debbie Johnson (e-proof)

You’ve seen Mark Darcy in the reindeer jumper his mother gave him, now meet Marco Cavelli in this season’s hottest knit!

For single mum Maggie, Christmas has always been a family occasion – her daughter Ellen filling the house with her bubbly warmth and mistletoe, her dad Paddy having one too many festive tipples, and the traditional family Christmas tree looking like a drunken elf vomited a rainbow all over it.

But this year, with both Ellen and Paddy away for the holidays, Maggie’s facing a truly blue Christmas – alone with nothing but a bottle of Baileys and an M&S turkey dinner.

Until walking the snowy streets of Oxford, Marco Cavelli quite literally crashes into her life – and, complete with a broken leg, becomes her unexpected houseguest. All dreamy brown eyes and 6’5” of gorgeousness, the man is hotter and more delicious than a freshly baked mince pie.

Though Maggie always thought it’s a truth universally acknowledged that you never kiss a man in a Christmas jumper?

This sounds like fun! A lovely addition to my growing collection of Christmas chick-lit to devour very, very soon… Thanks Harper Collins!

A Boy Called Christmas, Matt Haig (and illustrated by Chris Mould) (hardback)

You are about to read the true story of Father Christmas.

It is a story that proves nothing is impossible.

If you are one of those people who believe that some things are impossible, you should put this book down right away. It is most certainly not for you. Because this book is full of impossible things.

Are you still reading?

Good.

Then let us begin…

A Boy Called Christmas is a tale of adventure, snow, kidnapping, elves, more snow, and an eleven-year-old boy called Nikolas, who isn’t afraid to believe in magic.

Yay! So looking forward to this! And the finished copy is beautiful – glitter and gorgeous endpapers. Thanks Canongate!

Sophie