Letting Go by Cat Clarke | Review

Title: Letting Go

Author: Cat Clarke

Year of release: 2019

Synopsis: When Agnes made a promise to her girlfriend Ellie, she thought they would be together forever. One year later, Agnes is keeping that promise and it’s put her in a situation she never could have predicted; climbing a desolate mountain, in miserable weather, with Ellie and her new boyfriend Steve. But when the weather takes a threatening turn and the sky-high tension between the trio hits its peak, Agnes will have to push herself further than she ever thought was possible.

My thoughts: Ok. So it’s been quite some time since I’ve attemped to write one of these so please bare with me if I’m a little rusty.

First of all, I only read this today. Literally during the entirety of the bus rides home from work and that was easy to do, as the book itself is condensened into only 75 pages.

It was a quick and simple to follow read. Just what I needed.

I haven’t properly immersed myself into a book for a good few months and with the way I was feeling at the moment anyway, I didn’t want to overwhelm myself so I’m glad to say this was the perfect excuse to jump back into reading.

The author, Cat Clarke, is someone I have heard great things about from friends, but I’ve never actually delved into any of her works myself…well…that is until now.

The fact that this book was only 75 pages, gave me that little taster into how Cat builds her characters and captures the emotion they feel so beautifully.

I’m actually impressed by how much character growth you manage to see in such a short length of time.

I must admit though, I felt there was quite an abrupt ending. It was a nice sentiment to how it was done but it seemed rushed.

Was Cat sticking to a 75 page limit? Who knows?

Regardless of that, the message of being able to allow yourself to let go, even when it appears you can’t or thought you couldn’t definitely hit me and made me think. Let’s just say it’s exactly what I needed to hear right now. Made me smile actually.

Someone somewhere was definitely listening!

Find What Is Lost!

Title: Paper Town

Author: John Green

Publisher: Bloomsbury

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Quentin has always loved Margo Roth Spiegelman, for Margo (and her adventures) are the stuff of legend at their high school. So when she one day climbs through his window and summons him on an all-night road trip of revenge he cannot help but follow.

But the next day Margo doesn’t come to school and a week later she is still missing. Q soon learns that there are clues in her disappearance . . . and they are for him. But as he gets deeper into the mystery – culminating in another awesome road trip across America – he becomes less sure of who and what he is looking for.

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Paper Towns is the second book by John Green that I had the pleasure to read and although many people will probably say that The Fault In Our Stars is the best of John Green’s books, I believe it to be Paper Towns. It hooks you in within the first few pages, and holds onto you right until the end, whilst managing to prove just how much of a literary genius Green is. For those who don’t know, that is a lot. He is setting the bar high!

Ok, when I first went into this I just assumed it was going to be another sappy little love story where someone feels brokenhearted, but continues to yearn for the other. Although, it has elements of this, that isn’t all Paper Towns is. No! Not at all! This story is more about searching for something more and finding a truth you were missing, as well as the idea of being lost symbolizing how we all feel at some point and just knowing how to deal with it. Deep, right?

There were the elements of adventure and mystery which were interwoven amazingly within the plot and made this love story so different. There is just a sense of excitement that you don’t get in many other books of this caliber or genre.

Quentin is by far one of the most kindhearted characters I have come across, and starts off  as very vulnerable, but as the book quickly progresses through, you see him become much stronger in himself and way more attuned to the different situations he and the other characters are facing. It is definitely a wonderful character development.

Margo on the other hand, was a character I couldn’t fully identify with in the book, but ended up liking more in the movie. With the book, She seemed a little bit too much like two dimensional character to me, not developed quite enough, with too many flaws to her persona, and that really seemed to aggravate me at times as I saw it as a hindrance to the over all story line as well as to Quentin as a character. I am quite torn really.

Overall though, it is a great read, with some amazing moments which make it quite the journey of self discovery, and an awesome coming of age story.  I just really need John Green to write more books! ASAP! Please.

Chloe Lauren x

Geek Girl: Picture Perfect By Holly Smale | Book Review

Title: Picture Perfect (Geek Girl #3)

Author: Holly Smale

Publisher: Harper Collins

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‘“My name is Harriet Manners, and I’ll always be a geek.”

It’s the hilarious third book in the No.1 bestselling, award winning GEEK GIRL series!

Harriet Manners knows more facts than most. She knows that New York is the most populous city in the United States. She knows that its official motto is “Ever Upward”. She knows that 28% of Americans believe we never landed on the moon.

But she knows nothing about modelling in the Big Apple, and how her family will cope with life stateside. Or how to “become a brand”, as the models in New York put it. And, even more importantly, what to do when the big romantic gestures aren’t coming from your boyfriend…

Does geek girl go too far this time?

The laugh out loud follow-up to award winning GEEK GIRL and MODEL MISFIT will have you in stitches.’

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Review:

Geek Girl is a series that I began in the middle of 2014. That feels like forever ago now. Wow! Time does fly. Anyway, I do love the series, but this installment in particular, is definitely my least favourite so far. The concept was great, but something just didn’t click for me whilst I was reading it. I just didn’t feel the same appeal that I did from the others that I have read.

Saying that, I did think the relationships between certain characters had been developed further, and seemed to work better within the series now, especially that of Harriet and Nick. I really love their odd relationship. It’s adorable and played out very well alongside the main story line.

I also think Harriet herself has grown more now than in the previous books, but without losing the person that she is, which is really great to witness. Some people would call her weird, but I say she is seriously cool.

As the story was drawing to a close, I think it was kind of losing itself, due to it to feeling a little rushed. I really felt that there was something missing which would have closed it slightly better than it had been. I can’t quite decide what is missing though, but I guess that doesn’t matter now. I just hope the next book in the series, All That Glitters will pick the series back up to where it was before.

Chloe Lauren x

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Concentr8 Review | Book Club Tuesday

Title: Concentr8 

Author: William Sutcliffe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s

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‘In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What’s good for society is good for everyone.

Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They’re not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick – the only one Blaze really trusts. They’re not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it. What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random – a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn’t even have a good phone – hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain him to a radiator?

They’ve got a hostage, but don’t really know what they want, or why they’ve done it. And across the course of five tense days, with a journalist, a floppy-haired mayor, a police negotiator, and the sinister face of the pharmaceutical industry, they – and we – begin to understand why …

This is a book about what how we label children. It’s about how kids get lost and failed by the system. It’s about how politicians manipulate them. Gripping and controversial reading for fans of Malorie Blackman and Patrick Ness.’

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Review:

I went into this book thinking it was going to be an interesting read. The plot line sounded promising, both informative and fun. This was not the case. I was expecting much more than what was given.

I actually only got about 80 pages through before I had to give up on it. I tried so hard to get into it, but I just couldn’t! Those 80 pages felt like such a task to get through.

The writing style was extremely difficult to get used to, and made the characters feel two dimensional, maybe even one dimensional. None of them seemed realistic, nor could I identify with any of them.

One of the main characters was narrating he book, but I couldn’t figure out who it actually was, there was absolutely no indication. It genuinely could have been any of them. I was seriously confused!

Talking of theses characters, each one seemed to speak in slang, which really made everything seem a little off to me as there were many grammatical errors. Now I am aware this was supposed to be the idea, but personally, I didn’t like this, at all. It made it hard to keep up with what was going on, and what was being said. It felt incoherent, and did not make sense to me at all. I really don’t get slang.

Finally, the story line was really lacking any development, even after the 80 or so pages. Every page felt like such a blur to me, and to be honest still does. I am still trying to work it all out.

Confused! That’s pretty much how I feel!

Lonely Girl Awards Concentr8: 1 / 5 Happy Faces

Lonely Girl x

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