Hey guys, it's Kirsti. Welcome back to my
channel and welcome to another weekly
wrapup. This one is for the 23rd through
the 29th of April and this week I read a
total of nine books and 3,118 pages. The
first book that I finished this week is
a reread, and that is The Whispering
Skull by Jonathan Stroud, which is the
second book in the Lockwood and Co
series. I've talked about this series a
bit before - it is a young adult/
middle grade - like, it's young adult but
it's definitely at the lower end of
young adult - young adult paranormal series
in which ghosts are real and the only
people who can see them are kids and
teenagers. And so there are all these
agencies all over London that are
basically ghost hunters and there is
this one particular agency that is not
run by adults. Most of them are, but this
particular one is run by this teenage boy
named Anthony Lockwood and the series is
told from the perspective of his friend/
employee Lucy Cartwright and the
two of them along this boy, George, track
down ghosts and kill them and stuff. So
this one starts out with them getting a
job at a London cemetery and then things
start to go horribly wrong. I enjoyed
this more on reread, I think, than I did
the first time that I read it. I really
like Lucy as a character and she kind
of grows and develops quite a bit in
this one and there are definitely some
interesting things going on in the
background of this one where Lockwood is
concerned. So I just really like this
series. It's completely silly but it's a
lot of fun and on reread I bumped this
one up to 4 stars. The second book
that I finished this week was the
highlight of my reading week and that is
Longbourn by Jo Baker, which was
recommended to me - not specifically to me
but I picked it up because Olive from A
Book Olive was like "Oh my God, this
book is amazing." So, like, obviously I
picked it up. So this one is a retelling
of Pride and Prejudice from the
perspective of the servants. You guys
probably know by now that I am trash
for basically any Austen retelling ever,
so, like, I was pretty much gonna pick
this one up anyway, but Olive raving
about it just tipped me over the edge into
reading it, like, sooner rather than later.
And I loved the crap out of this book.
I've seen some criticisms of this story
saying that, like, it doesn't deal enough
with the Bennet sisters and with Mr.
Darcy and with the story that we know
and love. But realistically, that wasn't
the reality for the servants. They didn't
see a lot of the stuff that was going on.
They were too busy dealing with, like, all
the shit that happens
in the background. They were too busy
doing the cooking and the cleaning and
the preparation and the pressing dresses
and the doing hair and the washing and
the marching letters all over Meryton.
They were doing that kind of stuff and
they weren't really concerned with
whether or not Miss Lizzie was dating
some handsome dude or not. It's told
predominantly from the perspective of
the housemaid, Sarah, who was basically
adopted by Mrs. Hill at the age of six
to train her to be a servant. So she's
pretty much never known any other life.
And she's not particularly happy in this
life and she sees a future for herself
that involves more, but she doesn't
really know how to escape. It's also told
from the perspective of Mrs. Hill, who in
the original book is the housekeeper but
here her role has been expanded to
include the cooking, which was fairly
common in a lot of small households at
the time. And then it also has a chunk of
the story from the perspective of this
footman, who appears fairly mysteriously
on the scene, whose name is James. I had a
lot of feelings about Mrs. Hill's story.
I had a lot of feelings about James's story.
I really really liked Sarah as a
character. I loved seeing, like, little
bits of what we knew, because basically
what Jo Baker has done is she's taken
Pride and Prejudice and said "Okay,
any time a servant is on the page, that
interaction we will get in Longbourn, but
the rest of it I'm going to have to
create from scratch." So it was really
really interesting to see those moments
coming through in the story and then
having this whole other world going on
that we knew nothing about in the
original. I really loved the writing, I
liked the characters, I actually really
enjoyed the fact that it paints the
Bennets in a fairly harsh light and I
just absolutely loved this book and I
sped through it. I gave this book a
wholehearted 5 stars. Book number
three this week is one that my book club
has been nagging me to read for the
better part of a year now, and that is
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. This
is the first book in the Farseer trilogy,
and I was a little bit nervous going
into this one because it is epic fantasy
and everybody in my book club *loves*
this book, and epic fantasy and I tend to
not get along particularly well a lot of
the time. So, like, basically I was real
scared that I was going to hate this and
they would kick me out of book club. So
basically this is the story of Fitz, who
is the bastard son of a prince of this
particular magical realm and when he's
about six, Fitz is adopted by the royal
household. Not by his father,
but kind of by his grandparents in a way.
So it's basically Fitz's story from the
time that he's six through until he's
like 15 or 16, I think? As a result of the
fact that he is this bastard son of a
prince, they don't quite know what to do
with him and so they end up that they
decide they're going to train him as an
assassin.
Unlike Celaena Sardothian, Fitz does
actually kill people, which made for a
very pleasant change where assassins in
books are concerned. I have to admit, I
did find the magic in this one a little
bit confusing and kind of dry, but for
the most part I really really enjoyed
this book. I found it very compelling in
the early stages of the book. Once the
magic stuff and the learning how to use
magic happened, I was a bit like "Ugh, I just
don't care, skim on." But I really really
enjoyed the early stages of this book. I
really liked the interactions that
happen between Fitz and the guy who's
effectively his father figure for a lot
of the book. I liked Fitz's
relationships with people in the town, I
love that Fitz has a really close
connection to, like, several dogs in
the course of this book but, yeah, warning
that the dogs die. So that's a thing
that happens. I enjoyed this book more
than I anticipated I would. I am
definitely going to continue with the
series, but as the books get
progressively longer, I think I'm going
to need like a gap between them. I don't
feel immediately compelled to pick up
the second book. So I enjoyed this one
more than I anticipated and I gave it
4 stars. The fourth book I finished
this week is another reread and that is
The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong, which
is the second book in The Darkest Powers
trilogy. So as I said in my wrap-up last
week, this is a young adult spin-off of
the Women of the Otherworld series and
basically a 15 year old girl named Chloe
Saunders discovers that she is a
necromancer and that she was part of
some big experiment to, like, manipulate
the powers of various supernatural races.
In some cases the experiments basically
ended up removing people's powers, in her
case it has dramatically increased her
powers. So in the first book, it's basically
her discovering what's going on in the
world and her and this group of kids from
this group home that she's put into that
turns out to have nothing but kids with
powers, it's them trying to escape. This
one picks up exactly where the first one
leaves off. I really like having to see
Chloe learn to use her powers and kind
of struggle with that because she
doesn't really have anybody to teach her
what she's doing, she just kind of has to
feel her way through it. So I liked all of
that side of stuff. I like the
relationship that starts to be hinted at
in this particular book, but there was a
lot of this one that kind of has middle
book syndrome.
Like, I still really enjoy it, but there's
definitely some middle book syndrome
associated with this one and it has a
cliffhanger ending which drove me
absolutely nuts because I was planning
on waiting a week or so before picking
up the third book but because of that
cliffhanger ending I had to reread it,
like, basically straight away. So I did
enjoy this one, but I don't think I
enjoyed it as much on this reread as I
have in the past. So yeah, I ended up
giving this one 4 stars. Book number
five this week is Refugee Boy by
Benjamin Zephaniah? Zephaniah?? One of those.
So this is a story of a fourteen year
old boy named Alem, who is Ethiopian
and Eritrean. His father, I believe, is
from Ethiopia and his mother is from
Eritrea. The two countries at the time
this was written were in some kind of
border war, and his family gets caught in
the middle of it. So his father says "I'm
going to take you to England on holiday"
and then when they get there, his father
basically leaves him there to claim asylum
seeker status, and he returns to Ethiopia.
So this book basically follows Alem
through the process of applying to be a
refugee and all the legal stuff that
goes along with it, as well as him
adjusting to life in the UK and trying
to discover what has happened to his
parents. I really wanted to love this
book because it sounds absolutely
fascinating and really compelling and it
does deal with some, like, really serious
issues. However, the writing just fell
really really flat for me. There is almost
no emotion in the writing whatsoever -
it's very kind of clinical and dry a lot
of the time, and...I don't know. There was
just something about the writing that
meant that the characters felt a little
bit like they were cardboard cutouts
being moved around and that they didn't
really have any particular depth to them.
So that really hindered my enjoyment of
this book because, yeah, I just wasn't
keen on the writing. I wanted to like the
characters but I really couldn't a lot
of the time and so yeah. I ended up giving
this one 3 stars. The sixth book that
I finished this week was one I read for
my Classics Club project, and that is The
Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. This was
written at the beginning of the
sixteenth century and it is effectively
a series of letters that Machiavelli
wrote about how to be a good ruler. A lot
of the chapters are incredibly short -
they're like one to two pages of, like,
you know, "here are some people who fucked
up at ruling a place, here are some
people who are
great examples of ruling a place". So it
was really interesting at times to see
how things written in, like, 1513 I think
it was first published? How things from
then still apply to people who are, like,
running countries today. You can say "Okay
yes, you should definitely not be doing
this thing and you should be doing
this thing" and it's still applicable
over 500 years later. But at the same
time, there was a lot of this that I just
kind of didn't really care about? Maybe
it's just the fact that it's, like,
nonfiction about politics and that's
totally not my jam? But there was a lot
in this book that I just didn't really
care about. So I wanted to really love
this because I know a lot of people have
given this book 5 stars. But for me it
was kind of meh and I ended up giving it
3 stars. Although I will include the
caveat that a certain Cheeto coloured
president should probably read this book
because, you know, he needs to. Book number
7 this week was another reread, and that
is The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord.
So this is a straight up YA
contemporary. A year prior to the
beginning of the book, this girl, Paige, her
boyfriend Aaron drowned and she's spent
most of the past year grieving his loss.
They had only been dating for two months
and yet she spent the past year grieving
for him and dealing with the
expectations and the looks that go along
with being, like, the girlfriend of the
dead guy. So now it's the start of a new
school year and she's determined that
she's going to kind of change her life
over the course of the next year and I
just really really like this book. It's
cute and fluffy and ridiculous and it
deals very very well with grief I feel
like and I just I just really like the
relationship in this book. It is super
adorable and super cute. I enjoy Paige as
a character, I love the writing - although
I totally don't buy the bonus chapter in
this one of, like, what happens over the
following summer, because it features
teenagers sending each other masses of
emails and, like, teenagers don't do that
shit.
I enjoyed it way more on reread I think
than I did the first time around. The
first time that I read it, the first
three quarters of the book, I was like "Eh,
this kind of a three-star book", whereas
this time around, I enjoyed it hell of a
lot more. So yeah. I shouldn't enjoy this
book as much as I do because a lot of it
is fairly simplistic but sometimes your
brain just needs cute fluff. So
I reread this and I gave it 4 stars.
The eighth book that I finished this
week is Pieces of Sky by Trinity Doyle.
This is an Australian
contemporary YA book about a girl
named Lucy whose older brother has just
drowned, and it's basically her dealing
with the aftermath of his death and in
particular trying to work out who this
mysterious girl was that her brother was
dating in the lead-up to his death. The
kids at school really really love this
one, which is why I picked it up. It's not
kind of the usual thing that I would
read. I mean, I love YA contemporaries
but this one I just sort of...nyeh,
not really my jam.
So I read this one because they love it
and...yeah, I kind of sort of didn't. I mean,
it wasn't terrible and I do think it is
an excellent representation of grief and
the different ways in which people
process that. But the romantic
relationship that crops up in the course
of the story just fell completely flat
for me, I didn't really give a shit about
it at all.
I thought it was fairly obvious who the
mysterious girl was going to be so, like,
that side of the story I didn't
especially care about a whole lot. I
think my biggest gripe with this one was
the ending and the fact that everything
is neatly tied up in a bow and that Lucy
kind of instantly gets over her grief
when she discovers who this mysterious
girl is and she, you know, learns to go
back in the water again. Like, it just...it
felt a little bit too neat and tidy for
me and it just felt a little bit at the
end like it's simplifying grief. So yeah, I...
I enjoyed how Australian it felt, but apart
from that I didn't love it and I gave it
3 stars. And the final book that I
finished this week is The Reckoning by
Kelley Armstrong, which is obviously the
third book in The Darkest Powers trilogy.
This is definitely my favourite of the
three. I really enjoy where the story
goes in this one, I really enjoy seeing
the powers of these particular kids
growing and developing over the course
of the book, I love that there is more
adult involvement in this one and that
they kind of have to escape from certain
situations, I like that there are a lot
more allusions to characters that we
know from the Women of the Otherworld
series, so I really enjoyed that side of
things and the romantic relationship
that cropped up in this one I enjoy a
lot. The last time I read this, I
gave it 5 stars and I was like "Oh my
God, this book is amazing!" That was 2012.
Five years later, I'm like "This is a
solid ending to a trilogy, but it's
definitely not a 5 star book." So yeah.
I don't think that my feelings about
this have changed *that* dramatically, it's
just that I'm a lot stingier with my
5 star ratings than I used to be
and I have read a lot more young adult
books than I had when I first read and
loved this series. So yeah. I love this
book a lot, but it's definitely not a
5 star book. So I gave this one 4
stars.
So there you have it, friends. That is all the books
that I finished this week. If you have
read any of these and have thoughts on
them, please let me know down in the
comments, I would love to talk about them
with you. Thank you guys so much for
watching, I love all your faces and I
will see you on Wednesday.
Bye guys.
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