Recently I’ve been seeing lots of people do reading wrap ups for each month so I decided to do my own for the month of October. However, I decided to just choose 4 out of the 9 books I read this month to review so that I could go more in depth about my opinions on each of these books. These books are also not in any specific order but I have included star ratings and age ratings for each one!
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, Holly Jackson
Rating – ☆☆☆☆/5 Age Rating – 13+
Pippa Fitz-Amobi is a teenager who loves true-crime. She wants to become a journalist so for her senior year project she decides to research her small town’s famous unsolved crime, the case of Andie Bell’s murder. She teams up with the suspected murderer’s brother, Ravi, to try and unravel the secrets behind what really happened on the tragic night 5 years ago. The pair don’t realise what they have gotten themeselves into until the investigation becomes dark, dangerous and addictive.
The book is written as if it was a journal and it includes pieces of evidence, time stamps and interview transcripts. This makes the book even more gripping becasue it feels like you are investigating the murder alongside Pip and Ravi. There are also lots of important discussions surrounding racial injustice, and the importance of family and relationships throughout the book. The pace of the book was also very enjoyable because it wasn’t rushed or too slow. Overall, the elements of mystery through the book made it a gripping read from the first page and I would recommend this book to anyone above the age of 13. (It was also really fun to read in October because it was amurder mystery and perfect for a spooky read)
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
Rating – ☆☆☆☆☆/5 Age Rating – 14+
Little Fires Everywhere is a character-driven book that delves into the fascinating and intertwined relationships of the characters. The book starts of with a physical fire and from then on a story is built that eventually leads up to the cause of the fire. Although there are no there literal fires after the one at the start, every situation has multiple solutions that could each ignite ‘little fires’. The title is so fitting for a novel that explores the conflicts that burn relationships, especially those between mothers and daughters. The characters are all going through their own struggles and none are perfect which makes the novel even more captivating.
The novel is set in Shaker Heights, the first planned town in America where verything seems to be perfect. We start the book meeting Mrs Richardson who is the epitome of everything Shaker Heights stands for. She has a successful career, 4 children and lives in one of the many mansions in the town. Soon after we meet Mia who has just moved to Shaker Heights with her daughter Pearl. Mia is an artist and she and her daughter move to a new town every few months for Mia to find inspiration. They move into a flat owned by Mrs Richardson and Pearl gets to know the Richardson family and becomes friends with some of the Richardson children.
These women are only binded together by their children and later on in the book they are on opposite sides of a conflict that tears apart Shaker Heights. Throughout the entire novel Celeste Ng changes your perspective so much that you are constanly thinking making th ebook even more captivating!
The Inheritance Games, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rating – ☆☆☆☆/5 Age Rating – 13+
This book follows Avery Grambs an orphan, who lives a monotonous life where her only aims are to do well in school and work hard. Suddenly her world is turned upside down when billionare, Tobias Hawthorne leaves most of his fortune to her. To inherit the fortune she must live in the Hawthorne Mansion with the Tobias Hawthorne’s disinherited family members, for a year.
As the story progresses, Avery starts to believe that there is more to Tobias Hawthorne’s will than it seemed at the start. Hawthorne House is full of hidden tunnels, invisible ink and clues to uncover and we follow the four Hawthorne grandsons and Avery as they try to figure out why a stranger inherited billions. The media are aslo involved in this Cinderella story and Avery is pushed into the spotlight multiple times, and has to learn how to deal with the danger of this new life.
I really enjoyed the writing style of this book and the fact that there were so many puzzles and riddles intertwined in every chapter. As well as enjoying the character’s plots and backstories, we get to solve puzzles throughout creating an extremely gripping plot that I couldn’t put down. I would reccomend this book to anyone above the age of 13 who loves an engrossing book with lots of mystery.
We Were Liars, E Lockhart
Rating – ☆☆☆/5 Age Rating – 12+
This book is about Cadence Sinclair and the rest of the Sinclair family. Cadence is the eldest grandchild of the Sinclair family and is part of the ‘Liars’. The ‘Liars’ are Johnny, Mirren, Gat and Cadence and they see each other once a year, every summer but dont talk for the rest fo the year. Every summer they meet on the Sinclair owned island near Martha’s Vineyard, where each of Harris Sinclair’s daughters own a house that they live in for the summer.
It follows Cadence as she tries ot piece together what happened the summer when she allegedly hit her head on a rock and lost some of her memory. She gets terrible migraines and headaches when she tries to remember what happened so none of her family is allowed to tell her the truth about what happened that summer. Whilst Cadence tries to figure out how she some of her memory, the aunts are all arguing and there is lots of family drama.
Although I thought it was more character-driven until right at the end, it wasn’t neccessarily boring. The only thing that made me rate this book a 3/5 instead of a 4/5 was the wrtiing style. The vast majority of the book was written in a very choppy and not properly punctuated style. The author also tends to use very dramatic imagery which is usually very confusing since you don’t know whether the event is actually happening or not. However, I would still recommend this book because I think everyone has their own very different opinions on this book.
telling tales 