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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.