I got some books and since I haven't made a YouTube video since October I decided to film the unboxing. Even if that meant filming at 1:30AM. So, don't judge my sleepiness too harshly. I apologize that I have no clear thoughts in this video. Probably shouldn't have made it, but I did it anyway so there. You can't stop me! Mwahaha.
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Personal Rating: 3.5 stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.3 stars Content rating: PG-13 (for language, a bit of intense smooching, and dangerous actions) Annabelle’s life has always been Perfect with a capital P. Then bestselling young adult author Lucy Keating announces that she’s writing a new novel—and Annabelle is the heroine. It turns out, Annabelle is a character that Lucy Keating created. And Lucy has a plan for her. But Annabelle doesn’t want to live a life where everything she does is already plotted out. Will she find a way to write her own story—or will Lucy Keating have the last word? (goodreads.com) This was an odd, but enjoyable book. I picked it up to read between books in a series that I’m reading right now. I just wanted something light and fairly contemporary to read in short bursts since the books in the series I’m reading are ones that you really have to sit down and focus on. This book has short chapters and there isn’t much to keep track of in the way of plot so it would have made a good “short bursts” read, except for the fact that it was nearly impossible to only read one chapter at a time. Even though I am not much of a contemporary-romance reader (although I’m not 100% sure this can be considered contemporary) this book really sucked me in and if I read one chapter then I immediately had to read another. The chapters are short and move the story along quickly. Despite not even liking the characters all that much, I ended up staying up way past my bedtime (on a work night!) to finish reading it. I don’t think I physically could have put it down at that point. And my cat did her best to make me stop reading to no avail. So, no it was not the best book I’ve ever read, but by golly it was enjoyable. The characters annoyed me most of the time, especially the MC, Annabelle, but I still really wanted to know what happened to everyone. One thing that kind of bothered me was the fact that the author made herself one of the characters, but kind of not, but also yes. Like, the author of this book is Lucy Keating, right? And then, in the story of the book, Annabelle meets an author called Lucy Keating who turns out to be sort of the antagonist god-like character in the story. And the facts given about Lucy Keating in the book are not true of IRL Lucy Keating as far as I can find (Book Keating has written many more books than IRL Keating). Obviously I do not know IRL Keating personally, but I feel like Book Keating could have just been an author character with a different name. It got very confusing to try and figure out if the fourth wall was being broken or simply bent a smidge. The romance in the story was cute if kinda meh. I wasn’t sure about how the love triangle was resolved, but I am no expert on matters like these and I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t tell you much about it. I did enjoy the writing tips sprinkled throughout the book. It was kind of fun because it gave you advice on writing a story while being about a girl struggling to “write her own story”. It felt similar to If Cats Disappeared from the World—a sci-fi that’s not really a sci-fi because it’s actually talking about something deeper, using the fantastical to speak about the everyday human experience. In this case, it was about how Annabelle usually had every moment of her life spelled out by schedules and planners and how it’s like she’s writing out her life and then someone actually starts writing her life and she has to figure out how to break free of that. So, it doesn’t focus on the crazy aspect of having an author control your actions so much as it is about breaking free of your set ways and being willing to make your own choices. And romance. It focused a lot on romance, which was not really anything like If Cats Disappeared from the World. If you are looking for a cute love triangle romance with some self-reflection stuff thrown in and just a taste of sci-fi/fantasy to top it all off, then this might be the book for you! As I’m not sure it is necessarily a “good” book, but I had fun reading it and I hope you do too if you decide to pick it up. Now, I’d better get back to corralling my own misbehaving fictitious characters (they’ve really gotten out of hand lately…). Thanks for reading, see you next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653879-literally Personal Rating: 5 stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.9 stars Content Rating: PG-13 (for violence) TW: Violence, racism Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach. If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself -- but first she has to make it there, alive. (goodreads.com) Why is it that books in the Science Fiction genre always either have totally boring covers or completely gorgeous covers? There is no in between and this book falls solidly on the completely gorgeous end of the scale. The colors! The stars! The details! The intense look on Binti’s face! Amazing. Okay, with my swooning over the cover out of the way, let’s get on to talking about the actual book, shall we? This is a Sci-Fi novella (less than 100 pages) about a girl from a future Earth. She lives in a desert that she has never left and she is an amazing mathematician. Out of the Himba people, she is the only one to ever be accepted to a prestigious space college and even though her family does not want her to go, she sneaks away to get on the spaceship that will take her off of Earth and to the school. I generally have trouble getting into “heavy-duty” Sci-Fi/space travel books, but if more of them were in novella format like this book and All Systems Red then I might enjoy more of them. Since shorter novels need to make more use of their words and their plot and can’t spend too long on pages-long descriptions of how things work, they tend to pack more of a punch and they definitely hold my focus better. It also doesn’t hurt to have more female Sci-Fi characters and, of course, more characters of color in Sci-Fi as well. Make it more relatable for more people and more people will enjoy it. Anyway, I’m not here to climb on any sorts of soap boxes today, I’m here to talk about a book. I did not research this book very much before reading it, so I was definitely surprised by some of the things that happened in the plot. It kept me on my toes and kept me worried for the safety of the main character. Sometimes it’s nice to go into a book blind and not have any idea of what conflicts might pop up. Binti was a stellar (pun most definitely intended) character who I enjoyed reading about. I was invested in the outcome of her situation immediately and I can’t wait to read the sequels to learn more about her. I do wish there had been a few more important characters who Binti could interact with, as there was really only one who she connected with much. Perhaps more connections and characters will show up in the sequels. It’s hard to review a book that I enjoyed so much because, while I can think of plenty of positive things to say, without getting into spoilers all of the positive things sound pretty generic. So, I apologize that this is a short review, but I don’t want to ruin this book for you if you intend to read it. Which you should. Especially if you love Science Fiction but you don’t always have the patience to read Science Fiction. Also, if you like exploring African culture in a futuristic setting with aliens and mysterious rocks and excitement. It’s a good time. Thank you for reading this short review, hopefully next time I’ll have more to say. They can’t all be comically sarcastic scathing reviews of terrible pirate books *cough* The Dust of 100 Dogs *cough, hack, wheeze*. Until next time! I’m off to apply for space college and see if it goes better than my bout with real college… Image source: https://goodreads.com/book/show/25819514-binti |
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