chroniclesofabookmum's reviews
680 reviews

“Did any of you stop to think that Carrie White has feelings? Did any of you ever stop to think? Sue? Fern? Helen? Jessica? Any of you? You think she’s ugly. Well, you’re all ugly. I saw it on Friday morning. “

Carrie has a terrifying power, one that she knows she should not use, but she can’t help it. Carrie has been scorned and humiliated one too many times, in a sudden fit of rage her power is unleashed with devastating consequences.

This was the third Stephen King book that I read. I was really surprised when I picked it up because it was so short compared to his others. But I did enjoy it, it intrigued me throughout and I liked the plot. It wasn’t as much of a thriller as I had hoped and it didn’t keep me as hooked as his other books have. It’s still a 4 star for me as I did like it but I just didn’t love it for the 5 star rating.

"Here is the baby in the arms of an old woman. Here is the baby with a belly full of stars. Here is the baby in the arms of a woman who is not me. A woman who calls herself Mama"

The town of Protectorate have an annual tradition, an evil annual tradition. Each year, the youngest child is sacrificed and left as an offering for the witch who lives in the forest. The folk of Protectorate hope that this will stop the witch from terrorising their town and keep them safe. However they could not be more incorrect about the "terrifying" witch in the forest, who is in fact loving and caring. Each year she finds babies abandoned in the forest, feeds them the stars to keep them full and leaves them with a loving family. She cannot understand why this keeps happening. This all changes when Luna is abandoned in the forest and is fed the moon instead of the stars, filling her with magic that if left alone can become dangerous. The Girl Who Drank the Moon follows Luna's journey to the truth, with a loving witch she calls Grandmama, a swamp monster named Glerk and a humorous tiny dragon named Fyrian.

This book was such a delight to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. I love the plot and the concept of the book; I also love how appealing it is to a wider audience than its target of middle grade readers. I couldn't help but fall in love with the characters, especially Fyrian. His character made me laugh throughout, and I couldn't help but compare him as "Donkey" from Shrek (I love Donkey). The fact he is a dragon made it inevitable that I was going to love him, however as he developed as a character I just loved him even more. I really enjoyed the world building in this book and the whimsical writing style that the author portrays throughout. I definitely wouldn't hesitate to live with the witch in the forest with her wonderful creatures. This book has most definitely opened my eyes to a new author, I can't wait to read other previous books she has written and I really hope she continues to write other fascinating stories.

I would 100% recommend this to everyone, even if you don't think middle grade is your thing, I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

"I'm not leaving here without you. Even if it means I have to wait. I'll wait. I'll wait in this miserable place for as long as it takes. And if you want me to stay, then i'll stay. I'll fucking stay here forever if you ask me to"

"Magic is not always formed from words, from cauldron brewing spices or black cats strolling down dark alleys. Some curses are manifested from desire or injustice"

"Memories can settle into a place: fog that lingers long after it should have blown out to sea, voices from the past that take root in the foundation of a town, whispers and accusations that grow in the moss along the sidewalks and up the walls of old homes"

**Sorry for the quote overload, one of the reasons I gave this book 5 stars is based on the fact I found some of my favourite quotes in the 300 short pages this story takes**

Sparrow, is a cursed town. A town whereby two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death by drowning as they were believed to be witches. A brutal drowning involved having stones attached to their ankles to ensure that the drowning of each would be successful. However, the town of Sparrow did not expect the three sisters to return, in the body of a current resident, once a year in order to seek revenge. Revenge whereby each sister lures a boy into the harbour and pulls them under water, thus drowning them like they once were. However, this year is different, whilst residents accepts the fate of the town, Bo Carter arrives and turns their beliefs upside down, especially that of Penny Talbot. Each of them have a secret they are not willing to share with each other. As time moves closer to the girls having to return to the sea for another year; will Penny choose to save herself or Bo?

I was apprehensive about going into this book as I had heard very mixed reviews from people I normally have the same genre taste as. However, I am pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the world that the author created and was so immersed in the characters and the plot. This is only a short story with a little over 300 pages but without a doubt it packed a punch. I found myself backing the "ship" more and more as the story continued. I don't know whether I was too immersed in the story and missed hints throughout but I actually didn't see the ending coming which shocked me. I had many different theories but the actual outcome was not one of them, I love it when a book doesn't feel predictable and takes me by surprise. I feel like this book ended at just the right time and I can't find anything missing that I would have liked to have seen. The authors writing style is beautiful, the story flowed like prose and it meant that I struggled to put it down. I definitely snuck in a few chapters when I shouldn't have.

I will definitely be reading more from this author, and despite the mixed reviews I would definitely recommend that you pick this up. It took me by surprise, and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to read this book.

"Now I think its one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child - What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that's the end."

"One, I feel very confused about where I want my life to go. What kind of person do I want to be? How do I want to contribute to the world? Two, I am getting very serious in my relationship with Barack and I feel that I need to get a better handle on myself."

Becoming is the autobiography of Michelle Obama. It explores many aspects of the previous First Ladies life. From her childhood, her life through Law school, meeting and marrying Barack, the process to prior to being the First Lady, to Barack's appointment as president and finally to her life now she no longer lives in the White House. This wonderful book explores the highs and the lows of Michelle's life and if you pick up this book I can assure that you will be entering an emotional whirlwind of a story.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to pick up this book as I am not very educated when it comes to Politics and it is something that does not interest me. However, I have always had a fascination of Michelle Obama's life, she always seemed to me like such an inspiration. I made the decision to pick up this book and I am so glad that I did. Michelle is so much more than the inspiration I originally thought she was, she is a true American legend; a hidden diamond. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about her early life as a child and being introduced to her family. What I loved most about this book, is that the tone did not change throughout despite the huge changes her life. She seemed to take things in her stride and always remembered her roots and the background that she came from. I feel like this explained a lot about the extensive campaigns that she backed when she was a First Lady, she certainly realised how fortunate she was to be in the position she is compared to others. I love how humble she is and how "normal" she comes across.

This book does discuss a fair amount of loss which pulled on my heart strings. By the time these losses came along in the book I felt like I had struck a connection with Michelle and therefore really felt her emotions as I was reading. A certain death in this book really struck a chord with me and like many other aspects in this book it made me realise how lucky I truly am to live the life that I do.

This book also made me laugh. Michelle has such a fantastic sense of humour along with Barack. A particular part I need to mention in my review is when Barack asked Michelle to marry her. She had been mentioning marriage to him for a while so when he finally asked she was taken by surprise. After asking her to marry him he immediately said "that should shut you up". This had me laughing so much mainly because I can relate as it is exactly what my fiancé said to me once he asked me to marry him. I love when you can strike a connection with a book through your personal experiences. This is exactly what I did with this book.

I know I have a lot of good things to say about this book yet I rated it 4 stars. The only reason for that is some parts I did find dense with political discussion. What did I expect aye? But for me I did struggle through these parts and found myself skimming to get to the parts that interested me more. If you are not particularly interested/fond of politics, please do not let that put you off. It is a brilliant autobiography that everybody needs to read, only a small portion of it is politics based. It is such an eye opening and inspirational read that I will be reading again sometime in the near future.

This was the first autobiography I have ever picked up, I'm so glad I opened my eyes to this genre and I will certainly be looking out for more!

"When fire burns, it uses up the wood. It devours it, leaving only ash. Grisha power doesn't work that way. Using out power makes us stronger. It feeds us instead of consuming us. Most Grisha live long lives."

"I've spent my life searching for a way to make things right. You're the first glimmer of hope I've had in a long time"

Ravka has been split into two by the Shadow Fold. The Shadow Fold is dangerous, absorbed by darkness and filled with monsters who feast on human flesh. The fate of Ravka lies with Alina, who possesses a priceless power, a power which she was not aware existed until it came to saving the life of her best friend. Alina is taken to the Royal Court in order to train as a Grisha. However the Grisha holds many secrets, secrets that Alina will uncover whilst learning to use the power that she possesses.

This series has been on my TBR for such a long time, the longer I left it the more reluctant I became to read it as I just wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. However, with the release of King of Stars, and the wonderful cover that I just could not resist buying I knew that it was now the time to begin devouring this series.

I am so glad that I did, I really enjoyed the concept of this book and it drew me in to the point where I did struggle to put it down. I feel like for a relatively short fantasy book it had an appropriate amount of twists and turns along with a plot twist that I definitely should have seen coming, but ashamedly I did not. This really upped the rating for me as from that moment onwards I was hooked with where it was going to go next and what was going to happen to the characters that I had grown to love whilst reading Shadow and Bone. I found that I could make a connection with the characters and that I found myself emotionally connected and on a level with them so that when something happened to them I could feel the way that they were feeling. I find this really rare with books nowadays, whilst I like characters I can't emotionally connect with them, however I definitely did with this book. I'm still not sure how to feel about Alina, I do like her but I definitely don't love her and in some parts she did irritate me a fair bit. But I suppose that can go for many main characters, I'm hoping that as the series continues I will begin to love her. MAL THOUGH! I don't even know what to say about him, I am so in love with him. I absolutely adore his character and I really enjoyed reading about him and getting to know him. Supporting and liking Mal really was an emotional rollercoaster and whilst i'm typing this I am still trying to get over everything that happened. I don't even know what to say about the Darkling, my emotions are so confused by his character.

I would say that I found this book pretty basic and I feel that a lot more world building could have been done. I do really like the world that Bardugo has created but I just found myself wanting that little bit more from it. I suppose it is only a debut and the world building will continue throughout the books. Whilst this is a criticism, I also feel like it is a compliment, I enjoyed the world and was really sold on the idea of it and it left me wanting to learn more about it.

I will definitely be continuing with this series and I cannot wait to pick up Siege and Storm to find out what Bardugo has in store for me next. I recommend you all pick this book up and give it a go!

“Watch yourself, Nikolai,” Mal said softly. “Princes bleed just like other men.”
Nikolai plucked an invisible piece of dust from his sleeve.
“Yes,” he said. “They just do it in better clothes.”

Siege and Storm is the second book in the Grisha Verse and follows on almost immediately from Shadow and Bone. I tend not to write up a synopsis regarding the second book in the series to avoid spoilers for those that have not read the first book so I'm just going to go straight into my feelings.

Did anyone else get Harry Potter vibes from this book? Horcruxes, Voldemort? Or was it just me? It didn't feel like a massively original system to me, all i could like about was The Deathly Hallows.

I don't know how to feel, I was left very disappointed with how this book developed, or didn't develop. I didn't hate the book, but I didn't love it like I expected to. I found that from the start until around 40 pages before the end, it was really slow paced and not a lot was happening. We were constantly to-ing and fro-ing between the same scenes and I found that I was bored. I didn't have the motivation to pick the book up to read more and found when I was reading it I was easily distracted and not really bothered about putting it down.

I do however love the fact that we have been introduced to Nickolai and he is just as charming and as witty as I imagined he would be. I loved discovering him as a character and I really enjoyed getting to know his background and slowly being spoon fed different information about him. I feel like Alina was built on as a character during this book more so than she was in Shadow and Bone so I found myself being able to relate to her more than I had previously. I definitely have a guilty pleasure for the Darkling though, I know I shouldn't like him, but I can't help myself! Mal just winds me up, he's just not interesting enough for me, and I find his pull towards Alina to be dull and boring which I don't think is the desired effect. I definitely do not ship them both.

As I said, this book is worth reading for the last 40 pages. It suddenly picked up, and it definitely did pack a punch. It left me wanting to immediately pick up the next instalment. Unfortunately, the last 40 pages did not change my rating it just made it a solid 3 star read.

I would recommend you read this and persevere throughout as it is worth getting to the end.

“Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what's inside you? That's steel. It's brave and unbreakable. And it doesn't need fixing.”

Ruin and Rising is the third and final instalment in the Shadow and Bone series. As it is a series finale I won't be creating a synopsis for this review as I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible for those that have not started the series yet.

I feel like the only person that felt underwhelmed by this book. I'm so disappointed as I really wanted to love it like everybody else but I didn't. Ruin and Rising was definitely faster paced that Siege and Storm was which was an advantage for me. I did want to pick it up and I didn't find that I was bored which was an improvement for me. I read it in less than 24 hours which suggests that I did enjoy it. This was a 4 star read for me until I got to the ending. I just did not feel that the ending did the series any justice as a finale. I mean, don't ask me what I actually wanted to ending to be because I don't know but I found that it was really predictable and mundane.

It sounds really sinister but for a fantasy series I wanted more death. I wanted to feel sad and mourn for the loss of characters I had grown attached to but that just did not happen. I feel like occasionally in the book I would feel that sense of loss coming and then Bardugo couldn't find the courage to kill the character and then I was left disappointed. I mean, I'm essentially moaning because there wasn't enough death in the book which sounds weird. Maybe I'm weird? I just wanted to be shocked and emotionally hurt by the premise of the book and I just wasn't.

It also still very much felt like Harry Potter as I mentioned in my Siege and Storm review. The plot just shouted Horcruxes and Voldemort to me. It just didn't feel original to me.

Positively, I enjoyed the pace of the book it did keep me on my toes. It kept me wanting to read more. I enjoyed the chemistry with the characters also and found myself laughing at the banter that I had. I feel in love with Nickolai even more and also the Darkling. I'm sorry guys I can't actually hate him. However, I must say my favourite character in this book happened to be Baghra. I thought she was absolutely fantastic, she made me laugh so much and she made the ultimate sacrifice which I did not expect her to do. She's your typical miserable old lady that you just cannot help but love. She kept me thoroughly entertained throughout the whole of this book and I definitely would have liked to have seen more of her.

I know this was quite a negative review, but I honestly did enjoy the book I just felt let down by the ending. I would recommend that you read this though because it is a great introduction to the Grisha Verse and it has made me want to continue with the Six of Crows duology.