The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and I loved it! I think it's such an important read and covers so many issues we face in the world today.

The Hate U Give is inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement in the United States and is about a 16 year old black girl called Starr who witnesses her friend get shot by a white policeman.

Starr knows because of herself and her friend not being white, the fight for justice for her friend is going to be tough. But with some encouragement from friends and family, Starr begins to speak out.

However this might not make any difference in the case even though Starr is stating only true facts of what she witnessed. But she will do anything it takes for her to get justice for her friend and fight for her rights as a black citizen.

I can't stress enough how incredible this book is and how much of an important read I think it is. It covers topics such police brutality, racism, gang culture, and fighting for race and gender equality and justice.

I loved Angie Thomas' writing throughout this and she covers the hard-hitting topics in such a fantastic way. I think she has really portrayed the messages in this book incredibly well both through her descriptive writing and her character dialogue.

I really felt so bad for the characters in this story fighting for justice and this shouldn't be something that exists in this world. I couldn't help but get attached to them as well. The story really made me feel every emotion and that's when I know I've read a good book.

While reading this I was feeling angry and shocked and upset as this isn't just a story, this is happening in real life and is something that really needs to be addressed and sorted out. I'm not from the United States or living there but I really hope that one day these issues are no longer.

Overall I think this book is incredible and if you've not read it I'd highly recommend it. It's one of those books that I think will go down in history as one of the most important reads.

Rating/5

5

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Bout of Books19 ReadAThon Vlog Part Two 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Here is part two of my Bout of Books 19 ReadAThon Vlog! I hope that if you joined in with the Readathon you had a fantastic week and you managed to get everything read you wanted to and I hope you enjoy my video!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Bout of Books 19 ReadAThon Vlog Part One 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I'm finally posting my Bout of Books 19 ReadAThon Vlog after having some technical difficulties! I had so much fun doing this Readathon and I'm so happy with how much I managed to read as well. I hope you enjoy the video and I'll be posting part 2 of the vlog very soon!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just realised I never did a review of Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer! And yes I've finally read it! Miracle! So Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final book in the Twilight Series so if you've not read that or seen the films and you don't want to be spoiled I suggest you stop reading now.

In this part of the series we see Bella and Edward's relationship really take off. The two get married and go on their honeymoon. But what happens on their honeymoon not even those two were expecting.

Bella starts feeling tired and dehydrated and sick, but she thinks its just a bug she's picked up. However turns out Bella is actually pregnant! A vampire and a human making a child is unheard of but somehow possible, so Carlise tells them to come home so he can see to Bella and make sure she survives the pregnancy.

The baby isn't making it easy for her as it's partly vampire and is feeding on Bella's body. As well as that, Bella also won't have a typical 9 month pregnancy as the baby is growing at such a pace it will only take a few weeks!

But another thing they are going to have to think about is protecting this child from the Volturi. Once they hear the word of there being a hybrid, they will want the child for themselves.

I actually quite enjoyed reading this part of the series which surprised me a little bit as I wasn't keen on Eclipse at all. But this book seemed to pick up the pace again most of the way through so I didn't feel like I was getting bored as much.

I liked reading more about the Volutri as they are such interesting characters and the scenes at the end with them were fast paced and exciting and definitely helped pick the pace of the story up again.

I liked the character development during this story but Alice is still my favourite character although I did grow to really like Emmett during this book as well as I found him really quirky and hilariously sarcastic.

I felt like the descriptions of locations and characters were also a lot better than some of the previous books so that helped me build clearer images in my head while reading.

Bella still annoyed me a lot but I expected that. I just find her such a boring, bland character with very little personality and that definitely slowed the story down.

However overall this was one of my top books of the series and although it's one of those series with so much love/hate, I did enjoy rereading it and I'm glad I did.

Rating /5

3

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished reading the If I Stay and Where She Went Duology by Gayle Forman. This has been on my TBR list for a long time now and I thought it was about time I got round to reading it!

I'll discuss If I Stay first and then I'll go onto discussing Where She Went.

If I Stay is about a girl called Mia who is in a car accident with her parents and her brother Teddy. She ends up in a coma in hospital however we see her perspective from outside of her own body. So although Mia is in a hospital bed unconscious, she is also wandering round the hospital trying to work out what happened as well as whether she actually wants to wake up.

There isn't a lot more I can say about this story without spoiling anything but I hope that very brief synopsis gave you an idea of what the story is about.

I enjoyed reading this story and I liked the different take on it. Instead of getting the perspective from a character that is conscious, seeing it from Mia's eyes when she is separated from her body was a really interesting concept.

I also felt I was getting a bit attached to Mia although there was on some occasions times where she was annoying me a bit. I also really grew to like Adam, Mia's boyfriend as you could really see the connection he had with Mia through his eyes.

I wish I had got to know Mia's family a little more as I think with a bit more time I would have grown to really love them but we still got to learn a lot about Mia and Adam and I enjoyed that about the story.

I really loved reading about Mia's love for classical music as I've always found that genre of music really interesting even though I don't tend to listen to it all that much.

Overall I think this book could have been a little quicker in pace as I thought it dragged on in places however I did really enjoy the way the story was told as that was different. 

Rating /5

3

And now onto Where She Went! So this contains spoilers especially if you haven't read the first book!

This part of the story is told 3 years on from the car accident in If I Stay and is now from Adam's perspective. He is now touring with his music band and finds himself in New York City. At this point he hasn't seen Mia since she left for Juilliard School of Music.

However he ends up crossing paths with her when he finds out about a music concert she is doing and decides to go along to support her. After the concert he is asked to go backstage to talk to her and this is really where the story begins.

Adam wants to find out why Mia cut him off and whether it was something he did. And if it was something he did, he wants nothing more than to correct that.

Again I enjoyed reading this story and it was great to see Adam's perspective as we got to learn lots more about him. I felt I got even more attached to Adam in this story and I couldn't help but feel a slight soft spot for him.

The character development was a great leap from the first book. Even the music interests these characters had in the first book began to change and it was interesting to see just how much these two had grown up in the three years they had been apart.

It was great to see both Mia and Adam doing so well in their music careers and how even though they hadn't seen each other in such a long time they still seemed to have a connection that they would never be able to get rid of.

I love how music is such a big element in both of these stories and how it had such a huge part in bringing Mia and Adam together. It reminded me in a way of Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell.

Overall I enjoyed this story just as much as the first one and I'm glad I gave this duology a chance. I also would like to pick up Gayle Forman's other books in the near future.

Rating /5

3

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished my fourth book of the Bout of Books ReadAThon and it was George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl! It was great to revisit this story as I loved it when I was a child.

This is about George Kranky who lives with his mother, father and grandmother. His grandmother has to have medicine at certain times of the day so one day when Mr and Mrs Kranky are out of the house, George decides to create a new medicine for his grandma to try to make her less grumpy!

You see, George doesn't particularly like his grandma as she is very demanding and mean to him so he wants to get his own back.

And trust me when I say...he definitely gets his own back!

I loved revisiting this story and these characters and I remember this story being one of my favourite Roald Dahl stories as a child. It's funny and witty and will make you giggle throughout.

I loved Grandma Kranky as she was such a horrible character but you couldn't help but laugh at her as she was also really funny. I also loved how Mr Kranky didn't tell George off at all when he got back to the house and instead wanted to make more of the medicine to try to make money!

The plot for this story, although is very simple, has such detail intertwined into it and the imagination that has gone into it is really fantastic. Roald Dahl is definitely a one for imagination as all of his books prove.

This book is just full of humour that will make you laugh no matter how old you are. That's what I love about Roald Dahl's writing, it may be aimed at a younger audience but anybody can read it and still get something good out of it.

Rating /5

4

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Esio Trot by Roald Dahl - Review

Hello Again Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished my third book for the Bout of Books ReadAThon and it was Esio Trot by Roald Dahl. This is a super quick read and only took me around 20 minutes to complete so perfect for a ReadAThon.

Esio Trot is about a man called Mr Hoppy who lives above Mrs Silver. Mrs Silver has a little tortoise called Alfie and Mr Hoppy can't help but be a little bit jealous of Alfie. You see, Mr Hoppy loves Mrs Silver and is jealous of the lack of attention he gets and the huge amount of attention Alfie gets!

One day Mrs Silver is talking to Mr Hoppy about Alfie and tells him he wishes he would grow faster. Now tortoises don't grow very fast anyway however Mrs Silver feels sorry for Alfie as he seems to be a lot smaller than the other tortoises his age.

So Mr Hoppy comes up with a plan to 1. Make Mrs Silver think Alfie is growing...and 2. To make Mrs Silver think he is the most wonderful man in the world!

This is such a funny and sweet story and you can't help but love the personalities of these characters. Although at some points I thought Mr Hoppy was being a bit sly to Mrs Silver and making her look stupid, I couldn't help but think he was only doing this because he loved her so much and wanted to be with her. How sweet is that!

I also loved Alfie and even though he wasn't described too much really, the illustrations of him were so sweet and really helped bring him to life more.

I loved the simplicity of this story and its perfect for a quick bedtime read for little ones as it doesn't take very long to read at all. It would also be a fun story to act out and put on silly voices for the characters which would probably entertain your children even more!

Overall I thought this story was very cute and great for younger readers. It would also be a good introduction to Roald Dahl's writing as it is much shorter than most of his other books.

Rating /5

4

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished my second book of the Bout of Books 19 ReadAThon and it was a reread although I haven't read it in years and I couldn't remember a thing about it. But it was Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine.

This is about a girl called Rowan who is handed a negative picture off the floor from a complete stranger as he thinks she has dropped it. After telling the stranger it wasn't her that dropped it and him being adamant it was, she eventually gives up and just accepts the photo.

Once she eventually gets the photo to develop more so she can see properly what/who is on it, she realises this is actually a photo of her dead brother. Rowan naturally doesn't understand how a complete stranger could accidentally hand her a photo that wasn't hers anyway, never mind it actually being of her brother.

So she sets out to find this stranger to tell him what's happened. She also makes friends with a girl called Bee and turns out Bee is hiding a huge secret...

That's all I'm going to say for now as I don't want to spoil anything but I enjoyed this book but I wouldn't say I loved it. It was alright but I found it to be a bit slow in places.

I loved Rowan's little sister Stroma as she was such a funny little character and I also loved Harper (the stranger) as he was just such a lovely person as well as being very adventurous. One thing I did find though and this has never happened to me before...I couldn't picture Rowan as a girl for some reason. I kept picturing her as a boy and I can't for the life of me work out why this was.

I really liked the concept of this story but I do think more could have been done with it and more story development could have happened. I would have also liked to have read a sequel to this story where the main protagonist is Harper as he still has a lot of potential development.

Overall however I still enjoyed the story but it wasn't perfect by any means. And for that I don't want to give it a higher rating but I also don't want to give it a lower rating. So I've decided to go somewhere in the middle!

Rating /5

3

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Matilda by Roald Dahl - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished my first book of May and also my first book of the Bout of Books ReadAThon! I'm already loving taking part in this ReadAThon again and I'm excited for the rest of the week! Anyway the first book I have read is Matilda by Roald Dahl! This is my favourite Roald Dahl book so as you can imagine I was super excited to read this story again.

Matilda is a little girl who is born into a family that doesn't appreciate her. What they don't realise is that Matilda is actually an incredibly gifted child both academically and in the magical powers she possesses.

Matilda joins her local school and there her teacher Miss Honey doesn't take long to realise just how gifted this child is. She ends up setting her different work to the rest of the class as it is way to easy for her but when she tells the head teacher Miss Trunchbull about Matilda she doesn't believe a word of it and just thinks Matilda is another snot-nosed kid that she couldn't care less about.

You see, Miss Trunchbull isn't someone that you would ever imagine being a head teacher. She hates children and even says her perfect school would be one in which there were no children! So as Matilda spends more time at this school and learns more about this awful head teacher, she and her friends try to trick Miss Trunchbull on a number of occasions, one of which a newt is put into her cup of water and the newt ends up landing on her when the water tips over!

Matilda also learns of a huge secret of Miss Honey's and comes up with a plan to help her out and get back what should be hers.

This is such a fun book to read and it was so nice to revisit this story and these fantastic set of characters. Like I said before, this is my favourite Roald Dahl book so it was great to read this story again.

I love the settings in this story and how vivid the explanations of these were so you could clearly picture them in your mind. Some of them were imaged through the book so that also helped and of course I've seen the film millions of times so that is obviously engraved into my head as well!

Roald Dahl's descriptions in general throughout this book were fantastic and Quentin Blake's illustrations really helped bring his descriptions to life.

I also loved the characters and how each of them had their own unique personalities. It meant I never got confused as to who was who (more so of the school children), and that also made the story even easier to follow.

I didn't realise how much was actually added to the film that isn't included in the book. For example, the scene in the film where Matilda goes to Miss Trunchbull's house and starts to move things around in her house with her eyes while she is sitting in a tree outside isn't in the book at all. This scene is purely for the film and also Matilda is never put into the Chokey in the book either whereas she is in the film, but I don't think it mattered at all that these weren't in the book. The book still flowed perfectly and I still loved it just as much as I thought I would.

Overall I think this story isn't just perfect for children, but perfect for any age range. It's a story that will never age and a one I will definitely read to my future children if I decide to have any.

Rating /5

5

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Bout of Books 19 TBR 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

It's the start of the Bout of Books 19 ReadAThon! And what better way to kick things off by telling you about all the books I plan on reading during it! So here is my video and I hope you enjoy it!

Also if you're joining in with the ReadAThon then let me know what you plan on reading as I'd love to know and I'll speak to you all again very soon!!!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

May TBR 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Today I also have for you my May TBR! I'm really excited to keep my reading pace up this month as I definitely quickened the pace last month so hopefully I'll get most of these read at least and I'll tell you about all of my thoughts in my wrap up at the end of the month!

Enjoy!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

March/April Wrap Up 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've got for you today my March/April Wrap Up! My reading has definitely picked up again so I'm excited to tell you about everything I've been reading over the last couple of months! So here's my video and I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Dewey's 24 Hour ReadAThon Wrap Up 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Today I have my wrap from the Dewey's 25 Hour ReadAThon for you! I loved doing this ReadAThon and I'm really pleased with how much I managed to get read so here is my video and I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Dewey's 24 Hour ReadAThon Vlog 2017 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Today I'm finally sharing with you my Dewey's 24 Hour ReadAThon Vlog! I've reviewed all of the books mentioned in this video now here on my blog so you can also go check those out if you'd like to but for now here is my video and I hope you enjoy!

If you joined in with the ReadAThon feel free to let me know how you did and also let me know what your favourite book of the ReadAThon was as I'd love to know.

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

The BFG by Roald Dahl - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

So the final book I read in April was The BFG by Roald Dahl. I started this in the last hour of the Dewey's 24 Hour ReadAThon but never got it finished so finished it after. I've read pretty much all of Roald Dahl's books so this was a reread for me but I haven't read them in years so it was nice to revisit one of his stories.

If you somehow don't know what The BFG is about, its about a giant called 'The Big Friendly Giant' (BFG). He lives in a place with lots of other giants but he isn't like all of those other giants. He is a good giant, and the others are all horrible. They go out in the night to steal and eat people!

The BFG on the other hand eats nothing but the horrible tasting Snozcumbers! He doesn't believe in eating people and would try anything to stop the giants from eating people.

One night he visits London delivering good dreams for all of the children there to have. But he notices a little girl standing at her window and he knows that she has seen him. There is nothing left for the BFG to do other than take her back to Giant Country...after all she would only start telling people and the word would get out that giants exist!

This little girl is called Sophie and when she gets taken to Giant Country she can't believe anything that is happening...I ,mean its understandable...would you believe that is was possible that Giants were real and you're standing in the presence of one? Or would you think that this all must be a dream? I know I'd be thinking the latter of those things.

Sophie eventually begins to believe what she is seeing and hearing and starts to get to know the BFG and what he does. She also learns of the other giants and just how terrible they are! After hearing about these horrible creatures, Sophie and the BFG start to plan a way of stopping the giants eating people...I don't want to tell you how but it involves the Queen!

I absolutely love Roald Dahl's writing and the imagination in this story is just incredible. The words he has created specifically for Giants and the way in which he has the BFG talking is fantastic. The BFG has never had any education so gets his words and sentences all mixed up however you can still understand what he is trying to say even though he is really talking nonsense.

I also loved Sophie. She is such a strong minded little girl with such a big heart and just wants to do whats best for the world. Her friendship with the BFG is such a beautiful development and they really become to support each other.

Roald Dahl is also fantastic at bringing humour to his stories and the way he writes the giant's scenes are hilarious. He makes them sound so stupid and clueless yet evil and nasty at the same time. However he can also write beautifully heart-warming scenes with the BFG and Sophie that just make their friendship all the more lovely to read about.

I also have to mention the illustrations. Quentin Blake is one of my favourite illustrators and his drawings always make the stories written come to life that little bit more. They make the books he illustrates for feel interactive in a way as you feel like you know the characters even more and you are actually going through their story with them.

I can't wait to read more of Roald Dahl's books and I know I'll be doing this really soon as there is another ReadAThon just around the corner! But more on that another time.

Rating /5

4

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx