All That She Can See by Carrie Hope Fletcher - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

A few days ago I finished All The She Can See by Carrie Hope Fletcher, my third and final book of the Bout of Books 22 ReadAThon! I really enjoyed this book but did have some problems with it.

If you don't know what this book is about, it's about a girl called Cherry who has a secret talent; she can see people's negative emotions but in physical form. Her friend from when she was 7 also had the same talent however he was taken away because of this and she hasn't seen him since.

Cherry also has a love for baking and soon finds out she can put positive feelings into her cakes to make her customers feel better about themselves. Of course nobody knows what Cherry is doing but because of their love for Cherry and her baking they always come back for more which in turn is helping the neighborhood become a happier place.

But then a guy called Chase comes along and realizes what Cherry has been doing as he also has the same talent, however he can see the positive emotions, not the negative ones. So he goes out to try to stop Cherry succeeding in her business by creating his own business doing a similar thing but with alcohol.

I really did enjoy this book and the characters within it and I love the magical realism elements to this story. Carrie's books are always unlike any other books I have read and I never know what to expect when going into one of her stories.

I loved the baking element to this story and coffee shops and the close neighborhood setting as I always find it to be really cosy. Those things always just create such a warm atmosphere and even when things aren't exactly going right, the story is still able to keep that cosy warm feel.

I loved the characters in this story, even Chase who isn't exactly the nicest person in the world, well to start with at least! He has a funny way with words so even when he isn't being very nice, he still has a humor about him that keeps you entertained. I also loved Cherry and her want to try to make everyone as happy as they can be. She has such a loving, caring nature and someone I'd definitely want to meet had she been real.

The one problem I had with this was the ending. I felt it was a bit too open ended for me and although I sometimes like open ended books I felt like this one didn't pack the same punch other books with open ends I have read have had. I just found it to be a bit disappointing however it does leave it open for a possible sequel which I'd love to see.

Overall I did really enjoy the story and the characters and the atmosphere this book created and I would definitely recommend it to anyone that is looking for a cosy read with magical realism and a clever take on bringing emotions to life...literally!

Rating /5
4

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Beauty and the Beast. Book of the Film - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished my second book for the Bout of Books ReadAThon and that was Beauty and the Beast. The Book of the Film! I really enjoyed this as I knew I would do. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite Disney film and one of my favourite films of all time.

If somehow you don't know the story of Beauty and the Beast (where have you been?!?!?) I'll write a synopsis for you now. This story is about an arrogant prince who lives in a castle and treats everyone in the castle terribly. One day at one of his parties, an old beggar woman enters the castle asking for shelter from the storm. The prince laughs and tells her her she is too ugly to be in his castle. But then she begins to transform into a beautiful enchantress and casts a spell on the whole castle turning the prince into a beast and all of the staff into animated objects because of the way the prince has behaved. (As we all know...'Beauty is found within')!

We then meet Belle who lives in a small village with her father Maurice. The villagers don't really speak to Belle as they find her strange from always having her head stuck in a book. The only people that talk to her are the librarian, the potter, her father, and of course the 'hero' of the village, Gaston. Gaston however is anything but a hero. He is an arrogant, self-centred piece of work and not someone Belle wants to be associated with. But Gaston has other ideas as he wants Belle to be his wife.

One day Maurice, Belle's father goes out into the woods on his way to an inventions fair on his horse Phillipe. But before long the two realize they are lost and as well as that they can here the howling of wolves approaching them. They manage to escape the wolves and end up at a huge castle. When they enter they don't expect that this will lead them to Maurice being captured and locked away by the beast.

Phillipe travels back through the woods to find Belle and Belle knows instantly that her father is in trouble. So she goes through the woods to the castle with Phillipe. Seeing her father locked up she soon finds out that whoever has locked him up has sentenced him to life there. But to save her father she swaps places with him not fully knowing what she has let herself in for.

The Beast is horrible to Belle and treats her terribly however the enchanted objects help Belle and make sure she has enough clothes and food. What Belle doesn't know however is that if she can learn to love the Beast then the enchantment on the castle will be lifted and the Beast will become a prince again as well as all of the enchanted object becoming human again.

I love this story like I said before and the book brought it to life just as much as the film does. I love the storyline and how magical it is and I love the atmosphere this story creates. I can also feel the magic within the words that are written and I think Elizabeth Rudnick adapted it to book form very well.

I also love all of the characters in this story, even Gaston who is awful! He is just so stupid that you can't help but love him at the same time. I also really love Mrs. Potts as she is such a mother figure to everyone, not just her son Chip who I also love and is my favourite character in this story. Cogsworth and Lumiere, the Clock and Candelabra are also fantastic characters. They are the comedy of the story and it just wouldn't be the same without them.

What is great about this story is you can enjoy it at any age. It is just as magical reading it at 23 as it was seeing the film for the first time when I was a very young child. I couldn't recommend this story more and I highly recommend you read the book and see the film as it really knows how to bring out the magic in the story as well as in the characters.

Rating /5

5

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've finished One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus yesterday for the Bout of Books 22 ReadAThon and although I liked some of it I can't say I fully enjoyed it.

This book is about 5 students who all end up in detention. One of the students (Simon) ends up dead and the other four students are treat as suspects to the death.

That's all we really get to find out from the synopsis of this story apart from the different traits of each of the four students so that's all I'm going to say in terms of what the story is about.

Like I said before I did like some of the story just not all of it. I liked how we got to find out more and more about each of the students that were in detention the day Simon died and it was easy to determine which each of the characters were just on their dialogue as they were all different from one another.

This book is told in multiple points of view and I really like books that do that. However I thought the POV'S were changed way too often.Usually in a story each chapter is based from the POV of one of the characters and then in the next chapter it would be a different POV. However with this book there was multiple POV'S in each of the chapters which to me just felt too 'choppy and changey!'.

 The character development was something I did enjoy about this story as I felt I found out a lot about each of the characters and also the backstories to a few of them as well which made the story more interesting. However there were some side stories put into this that I don't think were necessary for the story at all. I think this book could have been shorter than it was and still told the story in a way it still got the message across to the reader.

I found my mind wandering quite a lot while reading this book and for me it did drag in some places so I felt I was losing engagement at some points. The writing style for me just wasn't exciting enough and I felt some of the topics in this book could have been written in a much stronger way.

Following on from that point the ending was what I had the most problems with. Although I didn't not like the ending, I also didn't like it either. The way it was written felt so rushed and for me it came across as a bit insensitive at times. It was as if I'd just read this whole murder case story and everything was revealed within a paragraph. I felt like everything could have been explained much much better and I think a more in depth explanation would have done the book more justice.

Overall I think this book was good however it did let me down as well so for that my rating is going to be in the middle!

Rating /5

3

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Bout of Books 22 TBR 2018 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Here is my TBR for the Bout of Books ReadAThon which is taking place this week! I'm so excited to get stuck into so many more books! If you're joining in with the ReadAThon then let me know as I'd love to speak to you during the week and find out what books you plan on reading! Here is my TBR video and I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Spring Cleaning Book Tag 2018 | BookTube

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Here is my Spring Cleaning Book Tag! I had lots of fun answering these questions and if you'd like to do this tag then feel free to! Here is the video and I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Some Kind of Wonderful by Giovanna Fletcher - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished Some Kind of Wonderful by Giovanna Fletcher and really enjoyed it. I think it is a perfect book to read in the Spring/Summer time so I'm really glad I read it when I did.

This is about a lady called Lizzy who has been with her partner Ian for 10 years. Because of this, her friends and family are expecting Ian to pop the question within the year. And a perfect time to do it would be when the couple go on holiday to Dubai! Lizzy Can't help but get her hopes up that Ian will finally ask her to marry him, but instead of this perfect romantic moment for the couple, Lizzy is left alone without a ring and flies back home as a single woman.

After Lizzy has got through the initial hardships of the break up, she begins to wonder who she would have been if she never had met Ian in the first place so goes out to discover who she is and who she could become now Ian isn't in the picture.

This is a really engaging read and also very real in the sense that these kinds of things happen all the time. I think it gives a great message that you don't need to be with someone to live a perfectly happy life. You can have the happiest life even if you're single.

I loved how strong Lizzy became in this story and she is a great inspiration for anyone who is going through or has gone through a break up. It was great to go along with her on her journey of discovering who she is and see her development through the story.

I also really loved the family and friends element to this story. You could tell the different dynamics between a family member or a friend and the funny quirks of these personalities really shone through. It gave the story a funny entertaining element and I think when the story is about something so real, you need to have that balance of serious and entertaining and I think Giovanna wrote that very well.

The writing style was so easy to follow just like in her other books and I definitely got attached to characters in this story just like I have done in her other works. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone and especially if you are going through or have gone through a break up and you feel you need a bit of a guide towards growing into a 'strong independent woman/man!'.

Rating /5

4

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie - Review

(Image from Google)

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've finished Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and enjoyed it but also had some issues with it. I really wanted to read this book as its of course its a classic and it sounded like something that I'd thoroughly enjoy as I'm a fan of murder mystery novels.

If you don't know what this is about I'll give you a brief overview now (with no spoilers). The story is of course set mostly on the Orient Express train and like the title suggests, someone is murdered while on there. The famous detective Hercule Poirot is also on this train so he takes it in his own hands to uncover what happened and who the murderer is.

There ends up being 12 suspects and the number 12 comes into play quite a lot as the story unfolds. There is also another story from the past which involves the person that has been murdered. This ends up being a key lead into finding out why this person has been murdered.

I think this story was clever and kept you guessing however I did have an incline quite early on as to who would be the main suspect in the murder. I did however like the back story of the murdered and how that came into play while finding out what had happened and why it had happened.

I thought the writing was easy to follow however I did find it quite repetitive at times. And I know its a murder mystery so when it comes to collecting evidence of course a lot of interviews were going to take place, however after reading that the suspect was asked to write down their name, age, home address etc. at the beginning of nearly every interview got really repetitive and a little annoying. We knew that this was going to be the beginning of each interview so it didn't really need to be written down each time.

The characters were well developed and each of their stories were told well in terms of their past, their links to the person that was murdered if they did have any links, and whether they had any reason as to why they might murder this person. I didn't however get attached to any of the characters and I felt myself being a bit stand offish with them instead of becoming engrossed in what they had to say.

Other than the repetitive writing, this story was fairly fast paced and because of that it didn't take me too long to read which I expected for some reason that it would. I would recommend this if you're an older reader, I definitely wouldn't recommend it to younger readers for obvious reasons, however it is a story I think everyone should read at some point in their lives to get their opinion on it.

I also watched both of the film adaptations to this story and again enjoyed them but I think the films made it even more obvious (but maybe that's because I'd already read the book). I enjoyed the 1974 adaptation as it has such a classic murder mystery feel to it. Hercule Poirot did get on my nerves a lot though as I just found him to be quite full of himself and although he is a well known detective so obviously knows a thing or two when it comes to uncovering crimes, he came across like he was boasting about this a lot of the time.

In the 2017 adaptation I found Hercule Poirot to be a lot more likable and I didn't find him annoying at all which increased my enjoyment of this film. I did however still find it obvious (again maybe that's because I already knew the outcome) but I did still like how it was brought to life on screen during this adaptation. It felt much more eery which did keep my attention more than I expected it to.

If I was to pick a favourite of the films I do think it would be the 1974 adaptation due to its feel. I really liked the old style murder mystery vibe it gave off whereas the new one although it is based on an old murder mystery novel, just didn't have quite the same feel.

If you've read this story or watched any of the film adaptations I'd love to know your thoughts on it (without spoilers for everyone who hasn't read/watched it) so feel free to leave a comment and I'll speak to you all very soon!

Rating /5

3

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx