Pigeon English - Stephen Kelman

Publication Details

Published by Bloomsbury in March 2011/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on July 19th 2011

263 pages

Unknown number of chapters

**PLEASE NOTE**

This book was sent to me for review from the publisher in return for an honest review. I have not been paid or told in any way to review this book positively or negatively. Everything stated in the review below is purely of my own, personal opinion.

Synopsis

Lying in front of Harrison Opoku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been murdered for his dinner.

Armed with a pair of camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television shows like CSI, Harri and his best friend, Dean, plot to bring the perpetrator to justice. They gather evidence—fingerprints lifted from windows with tape, a wallet stained with blood—and lay traps to flush out the murderer. But nothing can prepare them for what happens when a criminal feels you closing in on him. Recently emigrated from Ghana with his sister and mother to London’s enormous housing projects, Harri is pure curiosity and ebullience—obsessed with gummy candy, a friend to the pigeon who visits his balcony, quite possibly the fastest runner in his school, and clearly also fast on the trail of a murderer.

Review (SPOILER FREE)

Pigeon English is an originally Adult novel turned YA novel that tells the story of one boy's life in a Britain, as it explores the ups and downs of friendship, family and life.

For being such a small book, we meet a significant number of different characters from start to finish, varying from the main character's friends, family, enemies, local residents and more. Due to the high number of characters introduced throughout the entirety of the novel, I am going to focus on the main character - Harri Opoku.

Harri Opoku is our eleven year old narrator. Harri moved to Britain from Ghana with his 'Mamma' and sister - Lydia - in what we can only assume is the search of a new and better life. I didn't love Harri as a character, but I didn't hate him either, he kind of irritated me a tiny bit in some parts of the book, but not enough to make me dislike him, but he also never really did anything that made me absolutely love him either. Harri seems to be entirely oblivious to just how big and dangerous the world really is - he doesn't realise that he's surrounded by violence and hatred. He also doesn't understand how the world works - he tends to assume that whatever he thinks is the correct answer to everything and anything. So overall, I thought Harri was a pretty O.K. character, I didn't love or hate him, even though the fact that he could be extremely gullible really aggravated me sometimes!

As for Stephen's writing style, I kind of had a love/hate relationship with it to be honest. One of my biggest 'pet peeves' when it comes to writing is when the author repeats words over and over and over.. and over. And this book did that with a few words. I can understand why this happened - the book is narrated by an eleven year old boy, so it can be expected that his vocabulary isn't going to be that wide and so he would be likely to repeat words, but when I read at least one of the four or so words on almost every page, it can get extremely irritating and I almost put the book down and stopped reading it because of this at one point. And the worst part is that two of these words were 'slang' words so I wasn't even sure if I was pronouncing them right, so almost every other page I found myself struggling to pronounce these simple words. The four words I found to be repeated a lot are; hutious, brutal, asweh, and bo-styles. That's the only real issue I had with the writing. As for the positive side; I really liked that Stephen's writing in this was really simple and basic, it really helped me get into the mindset of Harri and allowed me to feel more empathetic towards him, like I was really in his shoes and almost as if I were participating in his every day activities.

Overall I enjoyed this book, but not as much as I'd hoped to. There are a couple more things I'd like to discuss before I end this review: 1. Plot. 2. Ending.

1. Plot: I was extremely let down by the plot. In the synopsis, we are told that Harri sets out to discover who murdered his 'friend' and the synopsis makes this sound like a pretty critical and dominant part of the book - it isn't. I would guess that this actually makes up about 25-30% of the entire book, it's only mentioned every 20 pages or so, and when it is mentioned, it only lasts for a few pages, maybe a chapter at most, and this really disappointed me. I was setting up for this story of a young boy setting out to find his friends killer and all that good stuff, but it's barely discussed and on top of that, as far as I'm concerned, we never even find out the dead boy's name! For the entirety of the book, he is literally referred to as 'the dead boy'. I guess it just stresses me out when the synopsis of a book is totally misleading.

2. Ending: I am both utterly furious and fascinated by the end of the book. Put it this way - when I read the ending I thought, "ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?! THAT'S HOW YOU END THE BOOK?!". However, after giving it some thought, I realised just how though-provoking it really is, I realised that for this book to really make an impact, it needed to have an ending that explored the harsh realities of life and how the unexpected can lie right in front of us, yet remain in hidden darkness.

It's for the ending specifically that I gave this book the rating that I did in the end. If it weren't for the thought-provoking ending, it would have been one less star. Also, this book has quite a fair bit of humour throughout it that made me giggle and laugh out loud, so that helped me get through a lot!

4 out of 5 stars!

Operation Eiffel Tower - Elen Caldecott

Publication Details

Published by Bloomsbury on July 5th 2011

200 pages

37 chapters

**PLEASE NOTE**

This book was sent to me for review from the publisher in return for an honest review. I have not been paid or told in any way to review this book positively or negatively. Everything stated in the review below is purely of my own, personal opinion.

Synopsis

Lauren, Jack, Ruby and Billy live by the seaside with their mum and dad. But their parents are always arguing, and then their dad moves out. Lauren and Jack decide they have to get them together again. And so begins Operation Eiffel Tower...

Review (SPOILER FREE)

Operation Eiffel Tower is a children’s/middle-grade novel that bravely explores the issue of how children cope and react when their parents argue, fight and pretty much hate each other.

In this novel we have three main characters – Jack, Lauren and Ruby.  Although there ages are never specified in the novel, we can assume that Lauren and Jack are around the 12-15 age range, while Ruby is presumably within the 6-8 age range. We also have Billy – the baby of the family, but he’s not mentioned much. Jack, Lauren and Ruby are siblings that are currently suffering through their parents arguing and yelling and fighting constantly, over and over.  Pretty early on in the book, the children discover that the number one way to get two people to fall in love is a romantic dinner for two by the one and only Eiffel Tower. Once the children discovered this information, they become instantly set upon raising money and paying to send their parents away to Paris for a romantic weekend.

I enjoyed all of these characters, especially Ruby. I enjoyed the enthusiasm and dedication they had throughout the entirety of the book. These children are so determined to help their parents stop fighting and once and for all, get them to love each other again, and I really loved that determination, it made me enjoy the book a lot more and hope that the children would get what they wanted in the end. I loved Ruby’s character especially because she was like a constant light in a dark room – being so young made her kind of oblivious to everything going on and the consequences of what could happen and I found I liked her character the most because of this, she is the perfect character to have around in a situation as dire as the children’s, she never fails to melt your heart with adorability and make you giggle with her obliviousness to what was truly surrounding her and the situation she was in with her siblings.

Overall, the writing style was enjoyable. It’s a little less advanced than what I’m normally used to considering this is a children’s novel and I usually read Young Adult novels. Although I enjoyed Elen’s writing style, I did have issues with it. I found that there wasn’t enough description – especially when it came to the characters. I feel like a huge part of reading a book is being able to visualise and place yourself in the setting with the characters, watch their movements, hear their words and in order to create an image of the characters we need descriptions of what they look like, what age they are, how tall they are – and that is exactly what this book lacked. When characters were introduced we were told their name and we’d move on without a description. Basically, we’d be expected to create the characters in our heads, based off nothing, which for me made it much harder to visualise and therefore enjoy the book at certain points.

Although the writing style kind of put me off a little at some points I still managed to thoroughly enjoy the book and the characters within. Considering the book is only 200 pages long, Caldecott manages to squeeze in a decent amount of stuff whilst keeping the pacing of the novel fluent and consistent, there were never moments with too much going on or moments when I was bored – and that’s one thing I always look for in a book, if it bores me for a significant period of time, I’m likely to lose interest and put the book down. This book succeeded exceptionally in this area and kept me engaged and interested from beginning to end.

5 out of 5 stars

Check out my YouTube video review of Operation Eiffel Tower!

Book Haul (10th December 2012)

Library Books:

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin

(I have just finished this one last night and LOVED it, I will hopefully have a review up sometime this week!)

Eve & Adam - Michael Grant + Katherine Applegate

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion

(Current Read)

Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas

Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia + Margaret Stohl

Books I won:

Entice - Jessica Shirvington

(This is the sequel to Embrace. I do not own Embrace and have never read it, so I'm not sure if this series is any good, so if you've read this series please let me know if it's worth reading! Oh and also, this copy is signed :))

Ten - Gretchen McNeil

You might be wondering, doesn't he already own this? Yes, yes I do. BUT, I won this copy from Gretchen McNeil herself on Twitter. And guess what, THIS ONE IS SIGNED!

HOLY SH*T THAT'S AWESOME! :D

Books I bought:

Who Could That Be At This Hour? - Lemony Snicket

A Song of Ice and Fire box set - George R.R. Martin

Okay, so I have a little back story to this one. I'm pretty sure we all know what Black Friday is. We here in the UK don't have Black Friday unfortunately, however, Amazon does do a week of Black Friday deals and I thought I'd check back every now and then and I finally came across this box set about 2 hours before it went on sale! So I decided to wait for the sale to start so I could check the discounted price out just out of curiosity, turns out the box set was reduced from £49.99 to £18.99! DEAL! So yes, basically, as soon as I seen that, this set went straight into my basket! I haven't started this series as of yet but I really want to, if you've read the series let me know if you enjoyed it! :D

AND FINALLY:

Kindle Paperwhite 3G + WiFi

Woohoo! I'm so excited to finally have this. I have been waiting months to get my hands on one of these and it was worth the wait! I should be filming and uploading a review for this Kindle Paperwhite on my YouTube channel sometime this week so keep an eye out for that if you're interested!

The Diviners - Libba Bray

Publication Details

Published by Little Brown Books on September 19th 2012

578 pages

65 chapters

Synopsis

Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."
When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

Review (SPOILER FREE)

Let's start with the writing style. Libba Bray's writing style is amazingly addictive! From the very first page I knew I was going to love this story and the way that it's written. Bray writes so fluently and majestically that you get so sucked into the story and become consumed in a way that enhances the experience and makes you want to keep reading and reading. I definitely felt like Bray's writing style is at a level that is both detailed and intricate yet simplistic and understandable so that you can easily paint a picture in your mind of the 1920's New York City that this book takes place in. Also, Libba's description of characters are extremely well done, I felt like I could easily picture each and every one of them in my mind whenever that appeared in the book, which is a definite bonus for me. Sometimes when a secondary character is introduced in a book near the beginning and they only appear here and there, I'll find myself going back and re-reading the description in order to re-create the image of that character that I had in my mind, whereas with The Diviners, I didn't need to do that because Libba's writing style and descriptions are so memorable that it's almost impossible to forget the minor details.

Now onto Evie O'Niell. I feel like this character is so relatable in some ways that it's kind of strange to read about a character that you can relate to so well, especially in comparison to past characters that you've read. Evie is such a 'normal' person in a lot of ways and that is the reason that I loved her as much as I did, it made her exciting to read about and interesting - you never really knew what decisions she would make, or what she would do next, she was unpredictable. She was also quite a funny character, there were several instances where I was laughing and giggling to myself at the things she would say - which definitely enhanced my love for her. Another unique factor to Evie's character was the fact that she had the ability to read people's deepest, darkest secrets just by holding an object that they own. This whole topic then goes on to be better developed as the book progresses.
So I want to talk about more characters, but I feel like I can only really discuss Evie in a way that will do the character some sort of justice. So I'm just going to say this about the rest of the characters: I loved them all, there are even characters in this book that I love to hate, which is always a huge bonus for me personally.

So one last thing I want to discuss before I wrap this up is that I did have one slight (very slight) issue with the plot of this book. Basically, the whole "Diviners" concept wasn't mentioned as much as I expected. Keeping in mind that I use the term 'issue' here extremely loosely. A huge part of this book is filled with mystery, which a lot of people might not suspect. I'm a huge lover of mystery so this if anything helped my experience with this book, however, it did take away a little from the "Diviners" concept - which you'll have to read to learn about yourself. Anyway, I feel like Libba Bray managed to balance these two concepts together extremely well in a way that kept the book enjoyable and exciting.

So overall, I loved this book so much! Keeping in mind that it is a huge book, I flew through this - it took me about 5/6 days to read it! I would have read it much quicker, but I had to put it down every so often because I was so surprised and overwhelmed at how amazing it was, that I had to take some time to absorb everything that was going on. I definitely recommend that you pick this book up! It has most definitely managed to get into my Favourites of 2012! Also, the sequel (unknown title) is released next year! WOOHOO!

5 out of 5 stars

Check out my YouTube video review of The Diviners!

LIGHT

Ok, so this isn't a review or a haul or anything but I absolutely HAD to share this with you guys! If you didn't already know, I'm a HUGE HUGE fan of the GONE series by Michael Grant, I mean, I love this series astronomically! And if you are a fan of this series also, you probably already know that the final book in the series LIGHT is coming out in April 2013 and if you aren't already a fan of this series well then... the final book in the series LIGHT is coming out in April 2013 AND ALL US FANS ARE SO EXCITED! After years of reading and loving this series and connecting with characters and losing them, the end is finally right around the corner. 
Anyway, not only the content of this series is epic but also, the UK covers (no no, not the US covers with the people on them, I personally think they suck) are completely AMAZING! They're plain, simple but so interesting and breathtaking that you just want to pick the series right up! ANYWAY, on top of the UK covers being amazing, the edges of the pages (yes I can rhyme) match the neon colour that surrounds the book title on the front of the cover, so each book has both a coloured title, and pages to match. So, when it was announced that the colour used for LIGHT is white my initial reaction was: wait, does that mean that the pages are going to be just plain white? And I believed this right up until today! Waterstones, which, if you're American and don't already know, is a bookstore chain here in the UK that can usually be pretty pricey but they have come in extremely successful in what has been announced that is being sold exclusively at Waterstones and it is this:

Yup, that my friends, is a first look at the edition of LIGHT that Waterstones is exclusively selling online and in stores. As you can see, they have the black edges around the sides of the pages, but wait, what's that down the side? You bet it is! It's a white lightning strike/crack that is printed on the sides of the pages! WHAT?! I personally have never seen a book with a page edge design as incredibly beautiful as this one! If you're in the UK, you can pre-order this exclusive copy of LIGHT from Waterstones TODAY FOR ONLY £10.39! I'll leave a link below so you can check it out if you wish! 
So yeah, sorry to anyone who has absolutely no interest in either the GONE series or this post whatsoever, but I just had to let out my excitement for this somewhere and you just happened to be the unfortunate victim of my excitement overload! :D
If you are completely and totally unsure of or have never even heard of the GONE series, I'll give you the description of the first book in this epic 6 part series here:

[In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE.

Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened.

Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents--unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers--that grow stronger by the day.

It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else...]

Ryan

Light Waterstones Exclusive - http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/michael+grant/light+-+waterstones+exclusive/9471828/

Book Haul (24th November 2012)

Sooo, I got some more books for review, and I bought some, so here ya go!

Books received for review:

Intertwined, Unraveled and Twisted - Gena Showalter

(So I actually requested these three books from Mira Ink and they accidentally sent me 2 copies of Intertwined, 1 copy of Twisted and 0 copies of Unraveled. However, being the amazingly kind people that they are, they are sending me a copy of Unraveled and have allowed me to keep the extra copy of Intertwined to do with as I wish, so I'll probably use it for a giveaway when I review the book hopefully in December so keep your eyes peeled!)

Books I bought:

One Shot (A Jack Reacher Novel) - Lee Child

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolkien

(I LOVE these new covers! I had to own them, impulse buy!)

Hope you enjoyed this book haul! If you've read or want to read any of these books let me know, I'd love to know what you guys think of them! :D

Ryan

The Maze Runner Trilogy - James Dashner (Series Review!)

Publication Details

These UK editions were published between 2011 and 2012 by Chicken House.

The Maze Runner - 369 pages, 62 chapters

The Scorch Trials - 359 pages, 65 chapters

The Death Cure - 329 pages, 73 chapters

Synopsis (of The Maze Runner [spoiler free])

When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he's not alone. He's surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade - a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they came to be there - or what's happened to the world outside.

Review (SPOILER FREE)

**Note - because this is a series review, I highly doubt that this is going to be a long and detailed review so I can't really go into much detail because I'm talking about three books at once here people, what more can I do for you guys?!** :)

The main things that I'm going to talk about here is my opinion of this series overall and the writing style, how I felt about the main character etc... so yeah, lets get started!

I really love Dashner's writing style, it's quick, it's to the point and it's detailed. The author managed to first create this world in The Maze Runner in a way that was vivid and had me hooked from the very first page. As the series develops into The Scorch Trials, Dashner manages to develop this world on a grand scale that completely magnified my love for the series. Dashner is capable of writing such amazing action scenes - that are fast paced and realistic - that escape the page and consume you in a way that causes the story to feel so realistic and vivid that it makes you literally feel as though you are right in the middle  of everything that's going on; you feel like you're trapped in this Maze with these children, you're taking this journey with the children and experiencing the same emotions that you expect them to be feeling throughout the entirety of this book. Also, Dashner ends almost every chapter with a cliffhanger - something I LOVE in a book, and these ciffhangers were so excellently and logically executed and perfectly placed so that when you thought things were just about to slow down BAM! they pick right back up again!

The main character - Thomas - is so incredibly well written that I feel like finishing the series has caused me to lose a friend in some strange way. I connected with Thomas extremely well and sympathised for his character throughout all three instalments in this trilogy. When Thomas was in trouble, I was worried. When Thomas was scared, I was horrified. Everything was magnified to a level that made Thomas and the world he was living in so unbelievably realistic and creative that I both feared and loved the world I was entering every time I picked up each book.

So far this review has been totally positive, however, unfortunately, this is where that ends. The Death Cure was a disappointment for me - as well as (to my knowledge) for the vast majority of other fans of this trilogy. It's an amazing book that again is fantastically well written with incredible characters that you love to read about, but it just didn't live up to my expectations after the first two books. The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials  were so amazingly breath taking that The Death Cure had a lot to live up to and I totally understand that, but it just didn't stay up to standards with the first two books. I still really enjoyed the book though. Also, I'm not sure about anyone else, but I really wasn't satisfied with the way Dashner ended the trilogy in The Death Cure. It's one of the few last-in-a-series books that I've ever finished and felt unfulfilled - like the series hadn't really ended or didn't come to a proper conclusion, and that really disappointed me. The last book was also a little anti-climactic in some points, I just didn't feel like much was happening. Again though, the last book was still amazing.

Overall, I LOVED this trilogy and I highly recommend that you at least pick up the first book because you won't be disappointed! I will miss reading this series and following the characters in their journeys very much. HOWEVER, there is still The Kill Order - a prequel to The Maze Runner trilogy - that I got an Advanced Reader's Copy of recently from Chicken House so I'm extremely excited to read that one before it's UK release in January and see how it all began!

The Maze Runner - 5 out of 5 stars

The Scorch Trials - 5 out of 5 stars

The Death Cure - 4 out of 5 stars

Overall Series Rating - 5 out of 5 stars