Review: The Death of Mrs. Westaway (ARC)

Title: The Death of Mrs. Westaway

Author: Ruth Ware

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384 (Paperback)

Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press

Publication date: May 29th, 2018

Synopsis from The Death of Mrs. Westaway's Goodreads page

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, and The Lying Game comes Ruth Ware’s highly anticipated fourth novel.

On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.

Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the center of it.

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, this is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

THOUGHTS

I won this book in a giveaway from Simon and Schuster Canada - Thank you so much!

I really enjoyed this book! I am a huge fan of Ruth Ware, and I have now read all four of her books. I love how each one of her books is so different, but her writing is consistent and beautiful, and each book she writes just gets better and better!
I really enjoyed every aspect of this book. Her characters were well written, and each one was wonderful in their own way - they each had a lot of problems and a lot of issues, but that just made them more interesting as characters throughout the entire book.
I also really enjoyed the whole idea of the plot - to have the main character mixed up and believed to be this long lost member of their family, it was a great idea, and I'm really happy with how it turned out!
I also really enjoyed the suspense fullness of the book. Ruth Ware has, in my opinion, always been a master of suspense, and it keeps you up and forces you to read her books in one sitting. I've read almost all of her books in this way, in one single sitting, and every time they always amaze me with how they can be a good sized book, but still manage to be so suspenseful and such easy reads!
The only issue I had with the book was that I found a lot of stuff to be slightly repetitive, and I found that I was mixing up a few of the characters, so a bit more could've been added to make them seem slightly less similar. Other than that, however, I had zero qualms about this book.
Her writing continues to blow me away, and I look forward to her writing more and more books in the future!

Overall - ★★★★☆.75

Review: Circe by Madeline Miller

Title: Circe

Author: Madeline Miller

Genre: Greek Mythology/Fiction

Pages: 394 (Hardcover)

Publisher: Lee Boudreaux Books

Publication date: April 10th, 2018

Synopsis from Circe's Goodreads page

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

THOUGHTS

I read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller last summer, and ever since, it has been one of my all time favourite books. Ever since I read it, I've been waiting and waiting for Circe to come out. Having finished it and taken some time to think about it, I can definitively say that it was worth the wait, and is now ALSO one of my all time favourite books ever.

Circe is another Greek Mythology book, (which is something that I have always loved, having devoured the Percy Jackson books as a kid), and I can easily say that anything Greek by Madeline Miller will be perfect and unbelievably awesome.

Madeline Miller has such a way with word; everything she writes is beautiful, no matter the context. It could be the saddest, or the most gruesome part of the book, and because it's her writing, it's still beautiful.

Her characters are all absolutely perfect. Either because they are perfectly flawed, or they are difficult, or they are just Gods among men (literally and figuratively). She creates her characters so that they are different from what is expected from them from reading Greek myths, but also similar enough that they are easy to distinguish, and their main traits remain consistent.

Her plots are also amazing. I know that a fair amount of her material comes from reading Greek myths and putting her own twist on them, but that makes me even more amazed by her. To be able to do so much research, then change the plot around a bit to make it her own, is something that I have always wished that I could do as well as she does.

Both of her books, The Song of Achilles and, now Circe, are both beautiful and are both perfect, sad, and wonderful in their own ways. I absolutely love both of her books, and I have no qualms about either of them. I love them both, and I know that I will continue to love them both for years to come. Thank you for putting Circe into the world.

Overall - ★★★★★

Review: A Breath After Drowning by Alice Blanchard

Title: A Breath After Drowning

Author: Alice Blanchard

Genre: Thriller/Mystery

Pages: 441 (Paperback)

Publisher: Titan Books

Publication date: April 10th, 2018

Synopsis from A Breath After Drowning's Goodreads page

The stunning new psychological thriller from the award-winning author of Darkness Peering and The Breathtaker.

Child psychiatrist Kate Wolfe's world comes crashing down when one of her young patients commits suicide, so when a troubled girl is left at the hospital ward, she doubts her ability to help. But the girl knows things about Kate's past, things she shouldn't know, forcing Kate to face the murky evidence surrounding her own sister's murder sixteen years before, bringing Kate face to face with her deepest fear.

THOUGHTS

I received a finished copy from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review - Thank you Penguin!

I have always been a fan of a good murder mystery (I am a die-hard fan of Agatha Christie's books), as well as psychological thrillers. Lately, all I want to read is thrillers! However, I do sometimes find it hard to find a good one that feels different from all the other thrillers that are out there lately. This one is one of those ones that is different, and is really well done!
This book is not a small one - it is a larger thriller, and that made me a bit hesitant going into it. I normally like smaller ones, where there is less details so the details that are there are important. That being said, I FLEW through this book, in 3 days!
I really enjoyed every aspect of this book - I loved how the main character is a child psychologist, and how she slowly starts believing that she is going crazy and losing her mind. I love how we get to see her slow descent into her (supposed) madness (everything makes sense in the end - but there's no spoilers here, so you will have to read the book to find out!)
I also love how the characters were so well thought out; they are all extremely important and there isn't any extra characters sitting around. I love thrillers and mysteries where the author is able to hide the killer in plain sight, not in the background. It really makes the twist at the end more exciting, and more memorable!
The plot itself was also really well done. It was fast-paced and memorable, and every aspect of the plot had some significance. It was very well written, and I loved every part of it.
When I also received this book from Penguin, they sent me a vial with some fake blonde hair in it, as well as a fake hospital bracelet. I was so confused as to why they sent those things, until I read the book, and everything made sense in the end! It really was well thought out to send me those things, because it made me want to get to the end to see why they had sent them to me!
This was my first Alice Blanchard book, and I really want to get my hands on her other books, especially if they are at the same level of amazing as this one was!
Overall - ★★★★☆.5

Review: The Amateurs by Liz Harmer

Title: The Amateurs

Author: Liz Harmer

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 336 (Harcover)

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Publication date: March 21st, 2018

Synopsis from The Amateurs' Goodreads page

PINA, the largest tech company in the world, introduces a product called port. These ports offer space-time travel powered by nostalgia and desire. Want to go back to when your relationship was blossoming? To when your kids were small, or when your parents met? To Elizabethan England? To 1990s Seattle? Easy. Step inside the port with a destination in mind, and you will be transported. But there is a catch: it's possible that you cannot come back. And the ports are incredibly seductive, drawing in those with weaker wills...
Nearly everyone buys the ports, and soon, nearly everyone is gone. Those who are left attempt to sort out how to survive in this world nearly devoid of humans. Animals are increasing in numbers, roads are degrading, the Internet is down, and gasoline is running out. The survivors are also left with numerous unguarded ports, which are as mysterious as they are threatening.
In this world we follow a motley crew camped out in the abandoned mansions and stately church of a former steel-town that has seen its own share of collapse and growth. The group of about thirty adults and children are looting and surviving on what food they can find. But the harsh winter is fast approaching--do they make the choice to head south as a group, or wait to see if their loved ones will return through the ports?
The Amateurs focuses on a thirty-something artist and shopkeeper, Marie. She has never gotten over her ex-husband, Jason, and stubbornly hopes he'll return to her from his new marriage and from the world beyond the port. Meanwhile, in California, life at PINA is breaking down. Brandon, the former head of PR and right-hand man to Albrecht Doors, the mad genius who invented the ports, decides to get out while he still can. He steals a solar-powered car and drives north-east, where he hopes to find his missing mother, and start a new life, maybe a family. And there he meets Marie.

THOUGHTS

I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review -- Thank you Penguin Random House!!

I was SO insanely excited for this book when I saw the possibility of getting a copy for review. I'm a massive science fiction nerd and when I read the synopsis for this book, I was SUPER excited. Not only that, but it takes place in Canada, in Southern Ontario, which is where I'm from! Nothing is cooler than going into a book and when the characters talk about streets and roads and being able to picture them perfectly because you have been to the city multiple times (it takes place in Hamilton!). So that made me have really high expectations, and although I enjoyed the book, it did have some flaws in my opinion.
The Amateurs takes place in the not so far future, and makes the reader contemplate what every character in the book contemplates - if you could go anywhere, any time, where would you go? and, WOULD you go? This book really makes the reader question their beliefs and their values, and that is really refreshing in a science fiction book.
I really enjoyed a lot of the aspects of the story. I loved the setting of the story because I was so easily able to connect with it, because I've been to Hamilton. I loved the way that the author was so descriptive of the buildings and the escarpment, how even little details were very well described, which made it really easy to picture.
I also really enjoyed how the author made some outlandish ideas seem just commonplace. All the tech, PINAphones and other tech devices, were spoken of as though they exist in the real world and we should know exactly what they are. The only qualm I had about this is I wish that she had described them a little better - there were some things I was a little confused about, and other things that my nerdy self wanted a bit more detail of.
I also enjoyed the characters themselves. There were not too many in the story, so it was very easy to keep them all straight and to remember which ones are which. I loved how they all fought and bickered and communicated, but were still families and still were able to work together.
The only problem that I had with the characters were that they didn't seem to develop a drastic amount. I found that only the main male and the main female character developed in any truly noticeable way, and even then, it was really only one major decision by either of them that showed any true development. I wish there had been a bit more from them; I feel like the story could have gone in so many more directions if there had been more monumental moments and decisions from the two main characters.
The plot itself I enjoyed, and the idea of the story itself I absolutely loved. I just wish that there had been more of the time during which the ports were being created and going around the world, when the population had been drastically dropping. The book itself takes place completely after the world's population has been demolished by the ports, and I feel like if there had been more talk and more flashbacks of the time during the ports that more could have happened in the book itself.
Overall, I thought that the book was dark, but enlightening, and that it was bold and one of the most creative books that I have read in a long time!
Overall - ★★★★☆

Review: Other People's Houses by Abbi Waxman

Title: Other People's Houses

Author: Abbi Waxman

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Pages: 352 (Paperback)

Publisher: Berkley Books

Publication date: April 3rd, 2018

Synopsis from Other People's Houses Goodreads page

And now the author of The Garden of Small Beginnings returns with a hilarious and poignant new novel about four families, their neighborhood carpool, and the affair that changes everything.

At any given moment in other people's houses, you can find...repressed hopes and dreams...moments of unexpected joy...someone making love on the floor to a man who is most definitely not her husband...

*record scratch*

As the longtime local carpool mom, Frances Bloom is sometimes an unwilling witness to her neighbors' private lives. She knows her cousin is hiding her desire for another baby from her spouse, Bill Horton's wife is mysteriously missing, and now this...

After the shock of seeing Anne Porter in all her extramarital glory, Frances vows to stay in her own lane. But that's a notion easier said than done when Anne's husband throws her out a couple of days later. The repercussions of the affair reverberate through the four carpool families--and Frances finds herself navigating a moral minefield that could make or break a marriage.

THOUGHTS

I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review -- Thank you Penguin Random House!

I have heard a lot of buzz around this book, especially from a lot of book bloggers and booktubers in the US, because it was featured on Book of the Month a few months ago. Ever since I heard of it, I was instantly interested in getting my hands on it!
Other People's Houses is about how one single decision can ruin more than one person's life, and ruin it to the point of no repair. It was so sad but also so funny, however this book is definitely for a more mature audience!
There were so many different characters in this book, so many crazy kids, so many out-there parents, that there was always something crazy going on throughout the entire story. That was an aspect of the book that I really enjoyed - that everyone got an equal amount of time in the story, and how every group of people had their own problems and how they were each just trying to live their lives and work through it. I really enjoyed the kind of "secret look" into each and every married couples' lives, and I thought that it was really interesting how they each had their own problems.
Also being said about the characters, is that they were all different and they were all unique in their own way. With a book this length with the amount of characters that there is, I was really expecting to struggle keeping up with all of the characters and how they were all connected. But each one of them had some either redeeming quality or some quality that drove me CRAZY, so it was easier to keep them straight than I thought it was going to be!
Another thing that I really liked about the book was how everyone had something either bad or just difficult happening in their lives. I don't want to say that I like bad things happening to characters that I like, but it makes them easier to connect with if they have something bad happening in their lives that impacts them in some way. Seeing characters struggling to deal with things, in my opinion, makes it easier to like them and easier to see parts of yourself in them as well. Having each character dealing with something made the story itself more realistic.
I did have a few issues with the story, however. Personally, I didn't like the ending, because to me it seemed a bit rushed and a bit unrealistic given what happens to the characters throughout the story. I found it to be a bit rushed and a bit forced, and that made the book not quite as good as it had been to me.
Overall I did enjoy this book! The characters were realistic, the plot was easily followed and the story line was quirky and interesting!
Overall - ★★★☆☆.5

Stacking the Shelves (2): So Many Books

Hello everyone!
Stacking the Shelves is a tag that I've seen around the book world, where people talk about the books and bookish things that they've acquired over the last little while.
Since the stack of books on my desk has gotten fairly large, I figured I'd do another one!
These are all the books I've gotten recently!

Adult books:

1. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
2. Bachelor Girl by Kim Van Alkemade
3. I Found You by Lisa Jewell
4. The Light We Lost by Kill Santopolo
5. War at the Edge of the World by Ian Ross
6. City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
7. Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
8. All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
9. Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas

Teen books:

1. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
2. History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
3. A List of Cages by Robin Roe
4. The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk
5. I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman

I'm super excited to get to all of these books!

Review: I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman

Title: I Have Lost My Way

Author: Gayle Forman

Genre: Contemporary

Pages: 304 (Hardcover)

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers

Publication date: March 27th, 2018

Synopsis from I Have Lost My Way's Goodreads page

Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plans to run away from everyone he has ever loved, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City with a backpack, a desperate plan, and nothing left to lose. When a fateful accident draws these three strangers together, their secrets start to unravel as they begin to understand that the way out of their own loss might just lie in help­ing the others out of theirs. 

An emotionally cathartic story of losing love, finding love, and discovering the person you are meant to be, I Have Lost My Way is best­selling author Gayle Forman at her finest.

THOUGHTS

I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review -- Thank you Penguin Random House!

I've always been a fan of Gayle Forman, having read her If I Stay duology when I was in high school. So when I saw that she had a new book coming out, I HAD to get my hands on it!
I Have Lost My Way is told from three perspectives - Freya who lost her voice and is an up and coming singer, Harun, a closeted gay youth who just wants to be the perfect son, and Nathaniel, who is running from a lot of problems and is trying to figure out a way that he can be the person he wants to be.
Every character in this book was extremely well thought out, and each was unique and relate able in some way or another. They all had some amazing qualities, and they all had issues and problems that everyone is able to understand or relate to in some way. Some of the issues tackled in this book are mountainous for young people, such as being a part of the LGBTQ+ community, trying to be the perfect son/daughter, and trying to figure out who you are and not have anyone disappointed in you because of it.
The story itself is heart-breaking in the best way possible, although it was super hard for me to read at times. Every aspect was hard to read because it is always hard to read something where the characters are struggling so much, especially when you are invested in the characters and what happens to them. With that being said, it is an amazing book. All of the issues were tackled very well, and I couldn't have thought of a better way for the characters to be able to get through them.
However, I did find that the book should have been a bit longer than it actually is. 304 pages is not small, considering that it did take place in one day, but I feel that a lot more could have been added to it. A bit more detail, a few more conversations.
The ending also I found was believable, but I wish that there had been a bit more to it. Another chapter or two, or even just an epilogue. What happens to these three people who just met that morning after that last moment? (I so badly want to talk about it but spoilers are awful - you'll have to read the book to find out exactly what happens!)
I Have Lost My Way comes out today - March 27th! Be sure to check it out!
Overall - ★★★☆☆.75