sprinkled pages » a book and baking blog

Hey friends!

Today I’m here to bring you mini reviews of Moonrise by Sarah Crossan and Because You Love To Hate Me, an anthology by various YA authors and booktubers! I’m going to keep the intro short because I’ve got lot’s to say so let’s do it!

MOONRISE by Sarah Crossan

I had read only one other verse novel before this one and it was We Come Apart, which I hadn’t ended up loving so I was a little reluctant to read this. And I’m so glad I did. The verse aspect of it made it such a unique read (even though I still don’t understand the point of verse, it feels quite unnecessary to me?) and it dealt with such an important topic with such grace and care.

I didn’t know much about death penalty before reading this book and I didn’t have an opinion on whether it should be legal or not – the only thing I knew was that Australia didn’t have a death penalty.

This story is very well written and hearing breaking, with the uncanny ability to pull at your heartstrings and have you sobbing for 10 minutes straight after finishing the book (pretty much like I was at the end). The verse aspect of this means it’s a super short read and easy to fly through, like I did. The characters aren’t that well developed due to the length, unfortunately, but they were at the same time likeable and the use of flashback added a much-needed depth and layered quality to the story. Seeing Joe’s memories of his siblings, mostly Ed though, made the characters feel so real and three dimensional. The plot was mainly focused on the characters, but I found the story to be unpredictable at times and kept me hopeful but at the same time, hopeless.

I really applaud Sarah Crossan for writing about such a controversial issue and it really stood out to me from the other YA I had read. I highly suggest you all pick this book up if you have the chance!

OVERALL RATING:

★★★★

BECAUSE YOU LOVE TO HATE ME edited by Ameriie

Because You Love To Hate Me is a YA anthology featuring works from many different and popular authors such as Victoria Schwab, Adam Silvera, Nicola Yoon, Renee Ahdieh, Cindy Pon and many more as well as short little commentaries from booktubers!

I was quite excited for this, having heard about it for the first time, because a lot of my favourite authors were going to have their work included in there and it showed me that there are other people outside of the book community that consider bloggers and booktubers as legitimate ‘jobs’ and that they are taken seriously enough to be asked to contribute in an anthology, which just makes me SO happy!

The idea of this was so great because the book was about short stories about villains and I am such a fan of villains because they are so interesting and complex when well written so I was excited to see what my favourite authors and booktubers could spin out of them.

However, I was left a little disappointed, probably because I’m not a short story person as I struggled to get into the stories and connect with the characters and feel engaged with the plot. They were quite dry here and there, although the booktuber commentaries were quite entertaining. Overall though, it meant I just skim read the stories and didn’t feel all that engaged.

There were a few I liked though. I liked Christine’s commentary on Renee’s story and Zoe’s little multiple-choice quiz too. I enjoyed Susan Dennard’s story (Sherlock Homes for the win! I adore than Dennard had a little Sherlock retelling because I am such a fan!) and Marissa Meyer’s spin on The Little Mermaid (she will forever be the queen of retellings) but I wasn’t AS huge of a fan as I had hoped.

I can understand though, that this is probably a more personal choice because short stories are not for everyone but I do still encourage you to borrow a copy from your library or buy one to support these YA authors and more importantly, the booktubers!

OVERALL RATING:

★★½

Thank you for reading friends!

Have you read either of these books? What did you think? Do you plan to?

Thank you to Bloomsbury Australia for providing me review copies of these books however all thoughts and opinions are my own and this is an honest review.

11 happy thoughts

1 happy thoughts

15 happy thoughts

A Semi Definite List Of Worst Nightmares | sprinkledpages

Hey friends!

Welcome back to my blog (or if you’re new, hello, welcome, I ramble a lot about books!) and I hope you’re all having a lovely day. Today I’m going to be sharing with you mini reviews for Our Chemical Hearts and A Semi Definite List Of Worst Nightmares, both by Krystal Sutherland.

If you didn’t know anything about Krystal Sutherland, she is an Australian author whose first novel, Our Chemical Hearts was published last year. I had been meaning to read her work for a really long time but for some reason, I kept putting it off until recently, I read both of her books!

OUR CHEMICAL HEARTS

I was super excited for Our Chemical Hearts. All my Australian bookish friends had been raving about this book and I was super pumped to read it after having heard such good things. But sadly, I was disappointed.

I liked how unique it was as most YA tends to focus on the romantics of first-love, rather than the realistic nuances of the emotion and I feel like Krystal was able to capture the heart of the emotion (aha no pun intended) really well. Henry and Grace had distinct personalities and they didn’t fall into the clichéd boy-meets-girl tropes common in YA. The side characters were also quite fleshed out and didn’t fade into the background, thankfully. The humour was well done and I feel as a writer, Sutherland has a lot of potential because her exploration of love and loss and first times was so well done. The ending was really great and managed to wrap up the book extremely well and get across the message.

But the problem comes in the middle portions. The book felt like it was trying too hard at times (and it reminded me a lot (and not in a good way!) of John Green) with the characterisation of Grace and Henry. It was so hard to connect with and root for them and often, their choices throughout the novel made me dislike them even more. They were so bland and often, cringe too. I didn’t like Grace, and I could understand she had been through a lot, but the hot-and-cold happening between the two of them frustrated me to no ends. Plot wise, the book dragged and didn’t have much happening, which was quite unfortunate.

Overall, it wasn’t the worst, but not the best either. A sadly ‘meh’ read for me.

OVERALL RATING:

★★★

A SEMI DEFINITE LIST OF WORST NIGHTMARES

I was more reluctant to read this after having read Our Chemical Hearts first because after reading the synopsis, it sounded much like the first one where the book ‘tried too hard’. But glad to say that this was an improvement and that Krystal Sutherland was able to improve as a writer since her first book.

This was well written and tackled the issue of mental health in an unexpected but absolutely terrific way that totally surprised and simultaneously pleased me. The dialogue was the perfect balance between touching and understated to deadpan humour (which, let’s be real, is the best kind of humour!). I liked the characters A LOT more in this one because despite their wackiness, they really spring of the page and seem life like. Esther was so loving and funny and a great main character and Jonah was such a sweet heart. Bonus points to Sutherland for having POC representation in this book! Once again, the side characters didn’t feel like side characters in this because they had such distinct personalities and an important role to play in the book.

But now to the downs. I found this got quite confusing at some points. The flashbacks irritated me because I wasn’t really interested in them, but they were vital to the story so I couldn’t skip them. Usually, I’m not that picky but I don’t think the supernatural elements worked very well for this book. I liked it up to a point, but when it began to become more detailed and a bigger part of the story, I was a little discouraged. The ending was also unclear and quite rushed as suddenly after the climax, the falling action happened in the matter of pages. It also took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t actually me who had missed something but the ending had been left that way and up to the readers own interpretation, which, once again, I usually don’t mind, but I felt like I needed closure in this one.

However, this was a solid read and a definite (ha, see what I did there? I am just full of jokes today!) improvement from the first one.