Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli - Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for today's stop on the tour for Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli! It is a pleasure to welcome you here, especially for Becky as I love her books and it feels like forever since we've had a new one to read! 

I read a lot of YA so I would invite you to click around my blog and see my other reviews. You can see my other reviews of Becky's books as follows: Yes No Maybe So (with Aisha Saeed) here, Leah on the Offbeat here, The Upside of Unrequited here, and Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda here. 

So, Kate in Waiting! Kate Garfield lives in Georgia and the prologue of the book sees her at theatre camp with her friend Anderson, saying goodbye to a boy they've met there, Matt. They both have a crush on him and ask for a selfie so that they can send it to their friends at home, Brandie and Raina. 

Back at home, their junior year of high school is about to start. And then it turns out that Matt has transferred to their school because his mother is from their town and wants to move back following her divorce! Andy and Kate are immediately agog, and have to have a conference in a bathroom about it.

Matt will be doing drama class, and Andy manages to get himself transferred into the same class. But Kate can't, so she's wildly jealous. Everyone then auditions for this year's musical, and both Kate and Anderson begin to make real friendships with Matt. 

They decide to set some ground rules. They have often had mutual crushes before. In fact, their friends think they're a little bit too codependent. But they'll be fine, right? They're Kate and Andy! But then Kate finds herself thinking there's chemistry between her and Matt, but she has to keep it from Andy, and then she feels awful about it. 

Meanwhile, there's fuckboys. Kate's brother Ryan is a little bit of a fuckboy, but she won't let her friends call him that. His friend Noah usually plays baseball, but he's broken his wrist so he's doing drama with Matt and Anderson, and he's in the musical. He and Kate have been friendly, but Kate hates fuckboys because of a mortifying experience when she was bulled in eighth grade. But Noah is just always around, and he is pretty cute... 

I loved this book! Not a lot actually happens in it, but it's a lovely slice of life, of being sixteen/seventeen, of families, of romance. Kate's family is Jewish and her parents are divorced, so she and Ryan split their time between their parents' homes. I loved how this was portrayed. Anderson is black, and gay, and the book touches on how difficult that is for him in a state like Georgia. Raina is trans, which was just a nice little extra in the book. I liked Kate a lot, and felt sorry for her in parts. I didn't warm to Anderson fully, but I liked Matt and even Noah even though he is obviously a fuckboy. I love how Becky writes characters with such depth. I love her easy way with dialogue. I love how her settings come alive. I would have read a novel the length of War & Peace about Kate and her friends! 

I'm giving this five out of five, and want to thank The Write Reads and Penguin for having me on the tour!

The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King - Blog Tour and Review

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King! If you haven't been here before please do have a click round to read some of my other reviews!

This book is quite outside of what I normally read, but I really enjoyed it and I'm glad I got the chance to read it. We start off in London with a man called John Carver. He is an ex-soldier who is addicted to gambling and who is running out of luck. He owes a lot of money to a loan shark so, in desperation, he goes to another ex soldier, Jim McCourt, to ask for a favour. The two served together in Afghanistan, and even though he hates the place, John has no choice but to go back to Kabul to do security work for a man called Gharfour. When he arrives, the dust and chaos get straight back into his bad books, but he starts the job anyway.

Carver has some kind of PTSD, and an interesting back story. On a mission in Kabul, several of his squad - Pearson, Turner, and Wilson - were killed by Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters. When the gun was turned on Carver, he managed to stop the bullet in mid air. Stories about "The miracle of Kabul" have followed him ever since. But Carver has his demons in the form of his dead squaddies. They turn up at inopportune moments in his mind, showing off their wounds, and blaming him for their deaths. Rule number three is that he never talks to them, but they are always there.

Meanwhile, a young woman wakes up in darkness, in a cell. She is strapped naked to a frame, with a tube for water and a tube for food within reach. She is called Mackenzie and she's Australian, and she has been working as a nurse for the Red Cross in Kabul. She also has somewhat of a traumatic past. Several tests are done to her and she manages to shout to someone, Armond, who is imprisoned in a nearby cell. Eventually, the staff in the facility bring in a candle and tell Mackenzie to put it out with the power of her mind.

I don't want to say anymore about the story because I think it'll go into spoilers, but I did really like the book. The powers that John and Mackenzie have reminded me of some of the mutant powers that the X Men have, and I'm a big fan of those films. I like that kind of science fiction where it is very firmly rooted in our world but with something just a little different (that is also my favourite kind of fantasy!) I liked both John and Mackenzie and was rooting for them both the whole way through.

This book has some really horrific parts and is quite gory, but it was completely in keeping with the book. I am giving this four out of five, and want to say thank you to all involved for having me on the tour!

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I received this book to read and review as part of the BBNYA 2020 competition and/or the BBNYA tours organised by the @The_WriteReads tours team. All opinions are my own, unbiased and honest (or insert your own standard version of the same). 

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Camp by L C Rosen - Review

Where did I get it?  I bought it in early January. I loved Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) so I've been meaning to read this for a while. 

What's it about? Randy is sixteen and gay, and every summer for the past four years he's attended four weeks at Camp Outland, a camp specifically for queer teenagers. Randy is a theatre kid and usually spends all four weeks preparing for the show, wearing lots of glitter and nail polish, and basically being fabulous. However, he has a huge crush on Hudson, a boy who also attends the camp. And Hudson doesn't like campy, femme boys. He likes 'straight-acting' masculine boys. He usually gets together with a boy for two weeks, culminating in sex in a private place, and then ignores them for the remainder of camp. 

But, this year Randy has a plan. He is reinventing himself as Del, a boy who likes obstacle courses and hates musical theatre. He's cut his hair, worked out all year, and isn't going to be in the show this year. He's wearing boring preppy clothes and doing all the same electives are Hudson.

His best friends, George and Ashleigh, think the plan is absolutely insane, but they do agree to support Randy. Their cabin counseller, Mark, also thinks it's loopy, and tries to tell Randy that he's better off being himself. But Randy isn't to be deterred, so the plan goes ahead.

And to begin with, it works. Del and Hudson do get close, and start to see each other, and make out all over the place. Randy is determined to not become a two week wonder, but it's obvious that things are going to go wrong. 

I couldn't gel with the book to begin with, and it took me three days to read like 150 pages. But then I got into it, and I wanted to know what would happen, and how everything would get messed up. I do think the end of the book was worth it, and I don't know why I wasn't feeling the beginning. I liked Randall and all his lovely queer friends! 

Please don't ever change yourself just to get a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner! It's not worth it! The right person will love you just for who you are! 

What age range is it for? 15+ 

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? Of course! I think there's queer people of all different kinds - gay, trans, non binary, asexual people. I would have liked a bisexual person! But that's just me being picky. 

Are any main characters people of colour?

Yes, Hudson is mixed race - I think half white and half Korean. He is also Jewish. I think Randy is too. I think George was a person of colour, too. 

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? No I don't think so 

Is there any sex stuff? Yes, it's explicit. I liked it a lot, and there's a lot of emphasis on safe sex, but it is explicit. 

Are drugs mentioned or used? No I don't think so 

Is there any talk of death? No, this is a mostly very uplifting book! 

Are there swear words? A few, not many 

 

What criticisms do I have? I felt there was a bit of repetition towards the beginning which is maybe why I struggled to get into it. But otherwise, none really. 

Would I recommend the book? Yes, but I preferred Jack of Hearts. 

Why did I choose to read it at this point in life? I had just been meaning to! 

 

What do I think of the cover? It's really cute! It looks like a camp badge and it has the rainbow on. I like it! 

 

What other books is it like? None spring to mind, I'm sorry. 

How many stars? Three and a half out of five. 

 

Where is the book going now? Oh I'll keep it, don't worry!

The Good Neighbour by R J Parker - Review

 

I saw this book on Netgalley and liked the premise, so requested it. Thank you very much to Harper Collins UK and One More Chapter for granting me access to the book for the purpose of review. I received an ecopy of the book for review but was not otherwise compensated. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

So, Leah Talbot is driving home on Valentine's Day when she hits a deer on a quiet road and damages her car. She isn't expected home - she and her husband, Elliott, have been together for eight years but are basically living apart. She walks to a gates house and finds the gates slightly open, so she goes to knock on the door. A man called something Tate answers, and lets her in so she can use the phone to call Elliott, and a breakdown recovery. She's covered in the deer's blood so she goes to clean up, and while she does Tate supposedly phones the police to tell them about the deer on the road. 

Leah ends up fainting due to low blood pressure, and when she comes round she's sitting in the living room with Tate pressing a glass of brandy on her. She begins to be very uncomfortable and wants to leave. She borrows an umbrella and then ends up kissing Tate on the doorstep, despite her misgivings. She goes home, where Elliott is not yet home, and has a long shower. Elliott is concerned about her, but it's obvious there's no love between them anymore. 

The next morning, Elliott leaves the house early and Leah decides to take Tate a bottle of wine to thank him for helping her. When she arrives at the house there are police all over. It turns out that the man introduced himself as Tate killed the owner of the house and has disappeared. The police are a little suspicious of Leah, too, since she was in the house too, and she doesn't tell them about the kiss.

She then gets a text message from Tate, and so begins a game of cat and mouse as Leah races to save everyone she loves and Tate toys with her.

I raced through the book and I did think the first half was pretty good. I wished Leah had just told police what had happened in full, but fine, whatever. I liked the mystery and Tate was genuinely chilling. However, the second half got repetitive and I totally lost track of what time it was supposed to be (it was dark? And then it was the afternoon?). By then I just hoped that the ending would make the whole book pay off. However, it did not. There was no explanation at the end as to why Tate had done what he did. There was no explanation as to how he knew Leah before the night she showed up at the house (which he did - he had already been to her house?? But how/why???) 

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did and I'm giving this three out of five. 

The Body Lies by Jo Baker - Review

My friend Laura bought me this for my birthday. She really likes Jo Baker and has bought me one of her books before, although I can't remember which one so don't ask me. As I've said before, I've been trying to read all the books I was given for my birthday and Christmas. I've got them all still by the side of the bed, and I'm working my way through them!

So, this book is about a woman, who I don't think is actually ever named in the book or by anyone, who is assaulted by a man while pregnant, near her home in London. She is married to Mark, and she struggles to get over it. Three years later, she is still struggling. She has had a novel published, and on the back of that she applies for a job in the north of England as a Creative Writing tutor. 

She and her son, Sammy, move to a remote village in an even more remote house, near a farm. She starts her job at the university and finds herself struggling. She has a lot of work to do, part of which is teaching the MA course. She has a handful of students on it, including Nicholas, an enigmatic 20something year old, Meryl, an American student who wants to go out with Nicholas, and some others. They review each other's work, and Nicholas and another student end up in an argument over trigger warnings. Nicholas' work is supposedly autobiographical, and it becomes obvious that he is writing about a girl that he lost, whose body turned up in the village that our heroine lives in. 

Nicholas becomes more obsessed with our heroine, and she begins to be scared in her own home. She goes to a party at his house and something happens that makes her even more scared. The narrative is also interspersed with "statements" from her colleagues and students, but it's not obvious what has happened until the end.

This is only a short book but it took me a while to read it. At the beginning I couldn't really engage with it, and I'm not sure why. At that point I would have given this book three out of five. However, I do think it picked up in the second half and by the end of it, it was more like a four. So I'm giving this 3.5 out of five.

I will say that I had a problem with a couple of things: one, I couldn't really understand why the heroine's assault was such a problem for over three years that she had to run away three years later. Why didn't she run away to begin with? Why didn't she get help in that time? I feel like this was just a way to make her child over three in the book, when she moves to the remote village, and I didn't really like that. The second thing I didn't like was that she had a problem in the relationship with her mother, to the extent that she doesn't tell her mother that she is pregnant until after Sammy is born. This is never explained and it annoyed me!

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas - Review

Where did I get it? I pre-ordered it from Round Table Books as I knew I wanted to read it, and I wanted to support them. I utterly recommend them! 

What's it about? It's a prequel to The Hate U Give! It's about Starr's dad Maverick! You may remember in T.H.U.G that Starr has an older half brother, Seven. His mum is Iesha, and when he was tiny, everyone thought King was his dad. But then right at the beginning of Concrete Rose, Maverick discovers via DNA test that Seven is his baby. Iesha then takes off, leaving Maverick looking after his son full time. 

Maverick lives with his mum, Faye. I think we see her in T.H.U.G. too. His dad is in prison. He was a King Lord gangster and was arrested when Maverick was around nine. He was sentenced to like forty years in prison or something, and is in a prison three hours away from The Garden where Maverick lives, meaning thet don't see him very often. I can't remember if he makes an appearance in T.H.U.G but I really liked him.

Maverick's girlfriend Lisa breaks up with him because he's had a baby with Iesha, and he is desperate to get her back. He has been selling drugs with his friend King, but he also wants to do the right thing so he gets a job in the grocery store with Mr Wyatt, his next door neighbour. But he is a King Lord, and that means certain things in The Garden. There's stuff going on with the big homies, including Maverick's cousin Dre. King is selling drugs without their say so, which will end in trouble (I wish I could remember what has happened to King in T.H.U.G!) 

Then of course we know there'll be Starr on her way soon... 

I loved this look back at Maverick's teen years. I loved seeing who he was and how through the course of the book he grows up, becomes a man, and shows up for everyone who needs him. I love how close he is to Faye, and she is a brilliant character. I also loved the relationship between Maverick and his dad - I loved how soft and raw and honest with each other they could be. I cannot say how much I loved this book. 

What age range is it for? 15+ 

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? I don't want to spoil anything, but yes, and this was a very, very sweet part of the book 

Are any main characters people of colour? Of course! I think most people in the book are Black. 

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? No, I don't think so. 

Is there any sex stuff? Yes. It's not graphic, but it is there. 

Are drugs mentioned or used? Yes, mentioned. There's some mentions of drug users, but they're not a main part of the books. 

Is there any talk of death? Yes. No spoilers, but it is quite graphic, and I really didn't remember what had happened when Maverick was a teen that we were told in the first book. 

Are there swear words? Yeah, a few 

 

What criticisms do I have? My ONE criticism is that it was SO SHORT. I wanted 150 pages more! I could've read SO much more about this family. I do think Angie made the right choice to end it when she did, though. 

Would I recommend the book? Yes, definitely 

Why did I choose to read it at this point in life? I'd forgotten it had arrived then my kittens knocked over my pile of books next to the bed and I though, oh yeah! Let's pick that up soon! So I did 

 

What do I think of the cover? It's lovely. I loved having a visual of Maverick. 

 

What other books is it like? There's a book I read as a teen where a dad had to look after his baby by himself, so it kind of reminded me of that. 

How many stars? Five out of five! So, so good. 

 

Where is the book going now? I want Lee to read it - he's read both of Angie's previous books so I definitely think he should read this too!

All the Beautiful Lies by Peter Swanson - Review

This was another of the books that I got in my box from A Box of Stories, and I had seen good reviews of it in the Facebook group, so I thought I would pick it up soon. I thought the beginning of the book was a little odd, so it took me a day to get into it, but then once I did, I really liked it and wanted to race to the end to know what happened. I ended up sitting for a good hour and a half reading at one point one afternoon. 

The book starts with Harry Ackerson, who has just graduated from college when he gets a call to say that his dad has died in an accident in northeast Maine. Instead of going to his graduation party, Harry rushes home. His only remaining family member now is his young stepmother, Alice. His dad, Bill, owned a book shop and was into rare books. Harry's mother died when he was younger, and Harry has never really got to know Alice too well. 

Bill slipped off the cliff path near his home, but police soon come to the conclusion that he has hit before he fell, so they are looking for a murderer. Harry's suspicion kind of falls on Alice, but then at Bill's funeral a mysterious woman turns up, and Harry starts to look for her to see what the deal is, too.

In a dual narrative we read about Alice's younger years. She was brought up by her single mother, Edith, who was injured in a mill accident and received a sizeable settlement from them. With this money, she and Alice move to Kennewick, where Edith meets Jake, and marries him. I don't want to say too much more here because I'll give away spoilers, and I really enjoyed reading this part of the narrative without having any idea of what was coming. 

The two narratives meet each other in the form of Alice, who is a very, very strange character and very, very cold. I didn't like her and was thoroughly chilled by her, but she's a great character! The first two thirds of the book is concentrated on Bill's home. Grey Lady. I could see in the book that the final third was different - there was a grey page which was evident as you looked at the book - and I didnt' get quite why, but then the final third there were two other narratives which made the preceding part all make sense. I thought it was a great way of separating the book in two. 

I would read something else by Peter Swanson, for sure! I would probably have never picked this up, but I'm really glad it came in my subscription box!