In My Mailbox (11)

In My Mailbox (IMM) is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren

In My Mailbox is a place to showcase your new books

First of all, I have to say a huge thanks to Nina at Death, Books and Tea for sending me a copy of Night School. It looks great and I can't wait to get around to reading it!

 Some fantastic ARC and review copies came into my home this week. I received a copy of Article 5 from America and I'm so excited to see if it lives up to all it's hype! I'm also looking forward to see what Michael Grant is offering in his new series, starting with BZRK. I love the covers of Hollow Pike and Dead Rules, so I'm keen to see whether the contents are just as good! I hadn't heard much about Unravelling before I got my hands on this copy, but it sounds like it's going to be very popular! As for a bit of a lighter read, I'll be reading My Family and Other Freaks.

I only made two swaps this week, but I think that they were good ones! I received some realistic fiction -Between Mom and Jo as well as some vampire goodness - Lucinda, Darkly.

 I came out of Waterstones in Newcastle with my hands full this weekend and a huge smile on my face! They were having a sale and I picked up some great bargains. I am very excited for them all - I picked up Breathing, The Tear Collector, Her and Me and You, Nothing Like You, Food, Girls and Other Things I Can't Have, The Not Quite Perfect Boyfriend, Compulsion, The Scorpio Races. I also picked up Early To Death, Early To Rise and Zenith, both seconds in series so I need to read the first books too, but thankfully they are sitting on my bookshelf! I have had my eyes on My Girlfriend's a Geek for a few weeks and they had the second volume in the sale, so I bought that and ordered the first! I also picked up Real Live Boyfriends, the fourth Ruby Oliver installment.

 This was my most exciting purchase this week. A very expensive copy of A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich that I won by auction! I've had my eye on this for a very long time but it's no longer in publication and so it's pretty hard to obtain. I am so excited to finally have a copy!

Follow Friday (5)

Follow Friday is hosted by Parajunkee & Alison Can Read

The question that everyone was asked this week was:

What would you prefer: reading your favourite book over and over again until you got sick of it OR reading 100s of mediocre books? Why?

I wouldn't really enjoy either, but I would certainly choose to read 100s of mediocre books rather than the same book over and over again. It's very rare that I ever read a book more than once, simply because I would already know what is happening and it wouldn't be as exciting for me. I would hate to have to read my favourite book repeatedly because, although I'd probably discover some new things, at some point I would get sick of it and ruin what the book once was for me. 

Sure, mediocre books aren't very exciting, but at least I'd be getting some variety and some new ideas in my head.  I think that sometimes it's up to your imagination to do some work for itself, and even with mediocre books, if I was forced to read them, I think I could make them a little more enjoyable for myself.

Oliver Twisted

Oliver Twisted by J.D. Sharpe, Charles Dickens

Paperback, 274 pages

Published February 6th 2012 by Egmont Books

My shelves: arc-or-review, better-than-expected,
books-i-own, currently-reading, fantasy, horror, 
read-in-2012, shapeshifters,vampires, 
young-adult, zombies

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

“FLESH", the woe-begotten moaned at Oliver, baring teeth which were ragged and black.

“FLESH”, came another moan, and he turned to see two more woe-begottens behind. They began to shuffle towards him, barefoot – toes blue from cold, arms outstretched.

The world according to Oliver Twisted is simple. Vampyres feed on the defenceless. Orphans are sacrificed to hungry gods. And if a woe-begotten catches your scent it will hunt you for ever. When a talking corpse reveals that Oliver will find his destiny in London, he sets out to seek the truth. Even if it means losing his soul.

My thanks go to Egmont's new imprint, Electric Monkey, for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am not usually tempted by books of this type - an idea taken from a classic book, but changed by a new author, adding new ideas. However, I was glad to see that this wasn't the original work with some new parts stuck in, but instead it was reworked and retold in a very original manner by an author who obviously loved the original characters.

As many of you will know, it was the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens this week, and so I thought, although it's not a traditional work of his, but rather a modern reworking, I'd pick up Oliver Twisted and see how it was. With it's great foundation and it's modern ideas, this was a fun read. Ashamedly, I haven't read Oliver Twist, but of course I am aware of the basic aspects of the story from other media, like most. From the altered name of this novel and it's very apt tagline 'Please, I want some gore', I knew that this was going to be a bit different from the original!

Our new story follows Oliver who is, as a lone orphan, travelling to London where he befriends Dodge and subsequently gets drawn into a world where he is used by Fagin in order to try and gain power for his evil brotherhood. The story is well written, thanks to a good basis and good original characters. 

For our main character, Oliver Twisted, a new and very gory story including zombies, vampires, werewolves and soul stealers is created. Due to these creatures that are very popular at the moment in young adult literature, I think that this book will appeal a lot of young adult readers, especially those who enjoy the paranormal genre. 

Characters that appear and that you may recognise include Fagin, Dodge, Bill Sikes and Nancy. These all possess the characteristics of their original personalities, but Sharpe has also expanded and added a new lease of life to them, making them react realistically to their new situations. 

The writing was good - there was still reference to the old english writing style right at the beginning, but for the most part, the writing was modern and very easily accessible to middle grade children upwards. The book is extremely gruesome - the grotesque descriptions made me squirm several times but were very effective - I can imagine that a lot of children would love this aspect, but beware if you have a sensitive stomach! The pace of the story is very fluid and it does become quite action packed towards the end. This was easy to read and rather quick, too - so there's no excuse not to give this one a go.

I think that JD Sharpe does do justice to this book and is successful in achieving what she intended - a twist to Oliver Twist, turning it into a modern 'horror' story - something that  will certainly appeal to the majority of older children and young adults today. I would definitely recommend this and hopefully it will encourage more people to read the original work too - I know I certainly will, and I would love to read more from Sharpe, too!

The Moth Diaries

The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein
Paperback, 256 pages

Published May 6th 2010 by Faber and Faber Ltd.
(First published May 30th 2002)

My shelves:arc-or-review, books-i-own, currently-reading, drink-and-drugs, fantasy, horror, mental-health, movies-or-tv, read-in-2012, vampires, young-adult

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Lucy and Ernessa have become inseparable. Ernessa’s taken her over. She’s consuming her.
What I saw wasn’t real. And I know it wasn’t a dream.
Ernessa is a vampire.
At an exclusive girls’ boarding school, a sixteen-year-old girl records her most intimate thoughts in a diary. The object of her growing obsession is her roommate, Lucy Blake, and Lucy’s friendship with their new and disturbing classmate. Ernessa is an enigmatic, moody presence with pale skin and hypnotic eyes.
Around her swirl dark rumors, suspicions, and secrets as well as a series of ominous disasters. As fear spreads through the school and Lucy isn’t Lucy anymore, fantasy and reality mingle until what is true and what is dreamed bleed together into a waking nightmare that evokes with gothic menace the anxieties, lusts, and fears of adolescence. And at the center of the diary is the question that haunts all who read it: Is Ernessa really a vampire? Or has the narrator trapped herself in the fevered world of her own imagining?

My thanks go to Faber and Faber for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the sound of Rachel Klein’s The Moth Diaries as soon as I heard about it. I’m a fan of books set in boarding schools and I also like reading about the paranormal, especially vampires. This books is about boarding school and vampires, but it’s completely not what I expected. I got something very unique, and something that I’m still quite uncertain about.

This is definitely a book to read if you want something that is different from your usual young adult paranormal novel. The most effective parts of this book, for me, were the foreword and afterword - claiming that this book was based on a journal kept as a teen by our narrator, who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, depression and psychosis by her psychiatric doctor. These sections are vital to the story and make it very interesting. Can our narrator really trust her thoughts, or is her mental health making her delusional?

The main section of this book is written as a series of diary entries by an unnamed narrator. It did feel somewhat personal, as usual teen issues including concerns over body image and friendship rifts were discussed. However, I found it very difficult to connect with our narrator. She didn't lack emotion, and what she did show, she expressed in quite a philosophical manner or through literary references. I think that the main reason why I didn't connect with the narrator was because I found her to be a little selfish and I thought her relationships with others felt a little immature.

A lot of the friendships in this book seemed to be quite manipulative. Our protagonist has a quite obsessive relationship with her best friend, Lucy, and seems to be possessive of her. When Lucy befriends the new girl, Ernessa, the narrator gets extremely concerned. Ernessa is later shown to have some strange habits, which, teamed with the strange goings on around her (including deaths and illnesses), our narrator single handedly decides that she must be a vampire. Ernessa seems to be very controlling, which creates her dark persona. I just didn't feel as though any of the friendships in this book were very healthy.

There are a lot of quite dark and disturbing issues mentioned in this book. Although there wasn't any particularly horrific graphic accounts of things, I did feel uncomfortable throughout the whole of the book. As I've said, I felt unsure of a lot of aspects in this book, but it did add to the dark undertone of the story. For the most part of this book, the narrator is battling with her thoughts about Ernessa being a vampire. It is an interesting idea - the reader is always questioning whether the protagonist is sensing real, strange habits, or whether it is a case of over thinking, a figment of her imagination.

The setting was gothic and it fitted well with the tone, but the world building could have been better - the setting felt victorian yet modern at the same time and firmer foundations could've been formed. I didn't really know what time period I was in, and I was constantly waiting for something big to happen. There were some deaths, but they didn't feel like shocking events. A lot of this book felt confusing, not because of what happens, but due to the thought processes behind the diary.

I thought that this was definitely interesting, especially the story behind it. Personally, it was a little too difficult for me to get into and a bit too ambiguous, but I would certainly recommend this to others who are interested in both mental health and in the paranormal. I think that Klein obviously has a lot of talent and it is shown in this book - I would love to see more from her.