These Shallow Graves

These Shallow Graves
author: Jennifer Donnelly
published by: Random House
released: October 27th 2015
pages: 488
my rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars













Jo Montfort is beautiful and rich, and soon—like all the girls in her class—she’ll graduate from finishing school and be married off to a wealthy bachelor. Which is the last thing she wants. Jo secretly dreams of becoming a writer—a newspaper reporter like the trailblazing Nellie Bly.

Wild aspirations aside, Jo’s life seems perfect until tragedy strikes: her father is found dead. Charles Montfort accidentally shot himself while cleaning his revolver. One of New York City’s wealthiest men, he owned a newspaper and was partner in a massive shipping firm, and Jo knows he was far too smart to clean a loaded gun.

The more Jo uncovers about her father’s death, the more her suspicions grow. There are too many secrets. And they all seem to be buried in plain sight. Then she meets Eddie—a young, brash, infuriatingly handsome reporter at her father’s newspaper—and it becomes all too clear how much she stands to lose if she keeps searching for the truth. Only now it might be too late to stop.

The past never stays buried forever. Life is dirtier than Jo Montfort could ever have imagined, and the truth is the dirtiest part of all.


For some unknown reason, I don't read historical fiction books that often, even though I almost always love them. I heard some great things about this book that made me read it and these people weren't wrong when they said it is amazing.

Jo Montfort struggles to fulfill everyones excpectations and just wants to become a writer and ask lots of questions. But before her father dies and she meets Eddie, she tries her best to oppress her feelings and be happy with the life she's given. I think her character was amazing, I could relate to her and her desire to become a writer and know things she's not supposed to know and I think lots of other people can too. But even though she isn't the lady everyone thinks she is, she is still a girl living in the 19th century and behaves accordingly. I liked that aspect of her too, because she was raised to think a certain way after all and to ignore that would make her character less believable and not fitting for the story.

I'm not going to talk too much about the mystery because it's a mystery and everyone needs to find out about it by themselves (duh) but what I will say is that it was very well done. I think I mentioned before that I'm not that good at predicting plot twists but I don't think anyone can see through the whole mystery. Also it seemed to fit perfectly when it finally all makes sense.

The  romance in this book was very well done as well but I didn't like it as much and it was the reason I gave it 4.5 stars. Don't get me wrong I still really really enjoyed it but some things just annoyed me a little. First of all: instant love. I don't really like it but it can still be done in a ok way which the author did here, so I'm not too mad about it. The thing that bothered me way more was that their love (I'm not going to say with who even though it's probably obvious to most people) was secret and forbidden and at the same time she's supposed to marry someone else.

But other than that this book is basically perfect. The balance between living an upper class life and the investigation of murder in the ugliest parts of New York was done perfectly. Also all the people Jo meets throughout this book are really unique and the female friendship is just great. I loved reading those parts most of all and wish there were more of them (girl power!).
The book started out good, a little slow paced at times but promising, but it turned out to be so much more and at some point I absolutely fell in love with it.

The Girl with all the Gifts

The Girl with all the Gifts
author: M. R. Carey
published by: Orbit
released: January 14th 2014
pages: 460
my rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars












Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius."

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

I started reading this book, knowing only as much as stood on the back of the book, so basically I had no idea what this book was about but was very interested nonetheless.

It turned out that this book is basically about zombies- there called hungries not zombies but they behave like zombies, with the whole eating humans and being basically dead thing, so to me they are zombies anyway. I was a little disappointed about that because it was not what I was expecting and to be honest, I think the whole world-overrun-by-zombies/ hungries/ Cranks, etc. is getting a little old, but I kept reading because I hoped it wouldn't focus on that aspect to much. I didn't have a problem with it most of the time and I can't really say it should have been left out because it is a really important part of the book and without the zombies nothing in the book could have happened, so I guess I liked it in a way.

In the end, I enjoyed the plot - it was ok, not something completely new but still enjoyable.
But what made the whole book so much better and unique was the main character Melanie. She was by far my favorite aspect of the entire book. If the whole book had been narrated from her point of view, I would have probably rated much higher but unfortunately that wasn't the case.
Why do I like Melanie so much? Well, first of all she is basically a kid, but unbelievably smart! Reading from a kids perspective is always interesting, but I'm not even sure if you can call Melanie a kid. In many ways she is but also isn't. Also she has this huge crush on her teacher Miss Justineau and it was so great reading about Melanie trying to help and protect her, even though she's the one who would actually need protection. Since Melanie remembers nothing from before her life in the cell, the cell and the classroom are the only places she remembers. At first I thought she was really naiv to trust and/ or wanting everyone to like her- even the people holding a gun to her head but she doesn't know anything else. And obviously she's different from everyone else somehow, it was kind of obvious way before Melanie found out but you'll have to find that out on your own anyway.

The other people in the book were not as great in my opinion. Obviously we have Miss Justineau but even though Melanie loves her, I just thought she was nice. She treats Melanie like a human being and not like some kind of speaking experiment that can blow up any minute (she can't actually blow up :) ).  I understand why Melanie loves her but she definitely isn't perfect or god-like the was Melanie thinks.
Then theres Dr. Caldwell. She isn't a nice person and I don't think you're supposed to like her, which is good because I hated her. She thinks Melanie is the key to finding a cure to the disease and basically wants to cut her open and slice her brain into pieces. So since Melanie is my favorite character in the book, you can imagine why I didn't quite like Dr. Caldwell. But at the same time I had this feeling while reading, that maybe she's right, since she does want to save humanity and that was really frustrating.
Sergent Parks is the soldier of the group and at first I didn't like him either, but he changes his whole mindset during the course of the book and in the end I did like him.
The last character in the book is Gallagher. I didn't really care about him. He was nice, I guess but other than that I didn't feel much about him.

I think that even if you don't like zombies you should still give this book a try. It isn't like the typical zombie books and Melanie makes this otherwise ok book into something truly special.

Dorothy Must Die

Dorothy Must Die
author: Danielle Paige
published by: HarperCollins
released: April 1st 2014
pages: 452
my rating: 4 stars












I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.
But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado - taking you with it - you have no choice but to go along, you know?
Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little bluebirds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still a yellow brick road - but even that's crumbling.

What happened? Dorothy.

They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm - and I'm the other girl from Kansas.

I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.
I've been trained to fight.
And I have a mission.

Everyone knows "The Wizard of Oz" and even though Amy Gumm, the main character in "Dorothy Must Die", goes through the main things Dorothy went through- being swept away by a tornado, following the yellow brick road- this book created a completely new Oz than the one we are all familiar with.
I read this as a buddy read and it was so much fun! Maybe that has an influence as to how I feel about this book, so consider yourselves warned.
Before everything else, I think it must be said, that I was in love with the Oz portrayed in Dorothy Must Die! I did not expect it to be as dark and gory as it was but it made the whole book so much cooler.

Amy Gumm was also way cooler than Dorothy in my opinion. She lives in a trailer and gets bullied. Her parents are divorced and her mother is an alcoholic and drug addict. Basically her life is pretty crappy. Also she goes through a lot of character development throughout this book, which makes her even more badass
When she lands in Oz she has to realize that Dorothy and her friends aren't the heroes anymore- they are the villains.
I wasn't really scared of Dorothy but she is so twisted and evil, you can't help but wonder how she ended up like this.
Her friends (The lion, the tin man and the lion) were way more creepy in my opinion. I was totally freaked out by them, especially by the scarecrow and exactly like Dorothy they were all a darker, more evil version of their selves in the "Wizard of Oz"

The book was very easy to read, it was fast paced and the writing wasn't too complicated. I felt like I flew through the chapters, even though with 452 pages, it is rather big.

Still I had a few problems with it.
First of all Amy excepted everything way too quickly. Her landing in Oz didn't seem to surprise her at all. She basically just thought: "I got transported to Oz by a tornado? That makes total sense!". See what I mean?
Also the ending was a bit anticlimactic, there was all that build up for an epic finale which wasn't all that epic in my opinion, but since it's the first book in a trilogy I'm hoping I'll get a great ending later on.

Overall the atmosphere in this book was great and makes me want to read on in the series. If you liked "The Wizard of Oz" you have to pick this up, as long as you can get over Dorothy being the bad guy. For everyone who hasn't read "The Wizard of Oz" : just read "Dorothy must Die" anyway.

The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
published by: Riverhead Books
released: January 13th 2015
pages: 325
my rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars



I think it is best to go into this book without knowing anything about it. So even if I personally think this review doesn't contain spoilers you might still want to stop reading here and come back after you read it. I highly recommend this book!






A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people’s lives.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

“Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches.”

One thing you can learn from this book? Nothing is as it seems. Nobody in this book is perfect and I think thats one reason why I like this book so much. I know I didn't give it five stars but I have a feeling "The Girl on the Train" will stick to my mind for a while.

Rachel feels like she knows the two people living in the house she waches from the train but when she actually learns more about them she has to realize that the perfect couple she imagined doesn't actually exist. I found it fascinating to see how the seemingly happy and perfect wife "Jess" slowly transformed into Megan, a woman with lots of problems, so many, not even her husband knew about them all. Her story made me want to cry in more than one occasion, that's how sad it is.

"This isn't a good idea. I know it's not a good idea. But what harm can it do?"

When I first started reading, I thought Rachel herself was happy and content with her life but it turns out fairly quick that this isn't the case either. Personally, I couldn't help but feel with her while she struggles to get herself together but I was also glad to see that it wasn't displayed as to easy. She is an alcoholic and also depressed and doesn't get better over night. Also she does make lots of mistakes throughout the book and sometimes I felt like shaking her, yet I continued to like her.

Another thing I liked about this book was how quickly Paula Hawkins managed to make me hate Tom and Anna, Rachel's ex-husband and his new wife. I especially loathed Anna and the chapters written from her perspective made me hate her even more. Really I don't think I despised someone that much for a while but Anna managed it without problem.

Something every thriller should do is keep you guessing. At least for me this was no problem. Maybe I'm just bad in catching plot twists, but I had no idea where the story was going until the very end and even though it seems logical now and I think I should have known earlier, I didn't.

I think you should be in a good mood while reading this, because it is a little depressing at times but other than that I highly recommend this book!

Soundless

Soundless
author: Richelle Mead
published by: Razorbill
released: November 10th 2015
pages: 266
my rating: 4 out of 5 stars












For as long as Fei can remember, no one in her village has been able to hear. Rocky terrain and frequent avalanches make it impossible to leave the village, so Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom. 

When villagers begin to lose their sight, deliveries from the zipline shrink. Many go hungry. Fei and all the people she loves are plunged into crisis, with nothing to look forward to but darkness and starvation.

One girl hears a call to action…

Until one night, Fei is awoken by a searing noise. Sound becomes her weapon.

She sets out to uncover what’s happened to her and to fight the dangers threatening her village. A handsome miner with a revolutionary spirit accompanies Fei on her quest, bringing with him new risks and the possibility of romance. They embark on a majestic journey from the peak of their jagged mountain village to the valley of Beiguo, where a startling truth will change their lives forever…

And unlocks a power that will save her people.

This book had me interested from the moment I heard about it. A fantasy stand alone book about Chinese Folklore? I definitely haven't ever seen something like that before. Also this book has gotten amazing reviews from a lot of people so I was really excited to start reading it. I didn't love this book like I hoped I would, but I still really enjoyed it.

My biggest problem with this book was that it was only 266 pages long. I really wished it would have been longer, because I loved reading about Fei's world and 266 pages weren't enough for me. Also the pacing in this book was a little of in my opinion. The book takes about 80 pages to really get going but the middle and ending sometimes felt a little rushed with some parts that have way too much information at a time. The ending wrapped up nicely, but a bit too perfect - at some point every problem was solved with hardly anything going wrong.

The fantasy part of this book is something I'm still conflicted about. It practically was non-existent in the majority of this book and I think it wasn't really necessary to bring it in at all.
As for the Chinese folklore: I've heard some people say it isn't like Asian culture at all, but since I don't know all that much about that topic I can't say if it was represented well in this book or not. I felt this aspect of the book was very interesting and well written, but once again I don't know if it's actually accurate.

I loved reading about Fei's romance with Li Wei but I had my issues with it in the beginning. The two grew up together and also already in love with each other but broke up, all before this book starts, which made it hard to me to understand the attraction Fei felt for Li Wei at first. After I learned more about Li Wei and their past however, I totally got it.

This is the first book of Richelle Mead I've read so far and I discovered that I absolutely adore her writing style. The way she describes Fei regaining her hearing and her and Li Wei discovering the unknown outside of their village was truly amazing. The fact that no one actually speaks in the entire book and only communicates in sign language didn't bother me at all but rather gave this book a unique touch I definitely enjoyed.

It may not have been as mind-blowing as I would have liked it to be, but it was still very good. I recommend it for everyone who is looking for an enjoyable read!

The Raft

The Raft
author: S. A. Bodeen
published by: Feiwel & Friends
released: August 21st 2012
my rating: 5 out of 5 stars











Robie is an experienced traveler. She's taken the flight from Honolulu to the Midway Atoll, a group of Pacific islands where her parents live, many times. When she has to get to Midway in a hurry after a visit with her aunt in Hawaii, she gets on the next cargo flight at the last minute. She knows the pilot, but on this flight, there's a new co-pilot named Max. All systems are go until a storm hits during the flight. The only passenger, Robie doesn't panic until the engine suddenly cuts out and Max shouts at her to put on a life jacket. They are over miles of Pacific Ocean. She sees Max struggle with a raft.

And then . . . she's in the water. Fighting for her life. Max pulls her onto the raft, and that's when the real terror begins. They have no water. Their only food is a bag of Skittles. There are sharks. There is an island. But there's no sign of help on the way.

First of all, this book is the reason I'm not to eager to board a plane again anytime soon (or get my nose pierced).
The summary really made me want to read this book and to be honest the cover as well. When I finally picked it up it sucked me in from page one and I read it in probably two hours. It's a fast paced book as well and has only 231 pages, so it's a very quick read. Also there was no part in this book, where I was bored, which was a fear of mine before I started reading it.

Since the main plot consists of their survival on the raft, there's not really much to say except that I loved it. I don't know what it's really like to try to survive in the ocean, but the way it's described here sounds very convincing and realistic.
And the plot twist in this book! Looking back, it may have been obvious but I did not expect what happened at all and was totally surprised. I had to sit there for a moment and process what just happened, but then it started to make sense and I seriously don't know how I managed to miss it.

Except for a short part in the beginning and the ending the two main characters are the only people we meet.
Robie was an amazing character, I absolutely loved her. She has no idea what to do in her situation, which is totally understandable and tries to figure everything out regardless. I like how she isn't fearless and doesn't stay completely calm all the time but instead is scared and almost giving up in some parts, but is still tough (if that makes any sense at all) and does her best to get a grip and manage the situation the best she can.
I didn't know what to think of Max and I still don't know if I like him yet. He is older than Robie, but doesn't do that much and sleeps or is unconscious a lot, but since that get explained later on I was OK with that.

If the plot line of this book interested you even just a little, you should read it and will not be disappointed. Maybe not read it on a plane or ship, but otherwise I think this is a book everyone will enjoy. I'm already looking forward to reading more books from this author.

the Murder Complex

the Murder Complex
Author: Lindsay Cummings
published by: Greenwillow Books
released: June 10th, 2014
my rating: 3 out of 5 stars












Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

I really wanted to love this book and was almost sure I would when I picked it up. But instead of absolutely blowing my mind, this book was just... OK. The idea and main plot really amazed and intrigued me but it was just executed poorly. It wasn't bad or anything but since I thought this was going to be an amazing book, I was disappointed.

The beginning of the book was definitely the worst part of the book for me. There were only a few explanations concerning the world they live in and even though thats the case in a lot of books I felt like the author had to work out the details herself while writing. This may not have been the case at all, but thats just what I thought while reading it.

The main characters also bothered me while reading. The book jumps between Meadow's and Zephyr's POV every chapter, which wouldn't be a problem, but some chapters were only two or three pages long and their thoughts sounded so similar, I got confused to who the narrater was once or twice.

Reading about their thoughts and emotions was a little like watching the story play out from behind a screen. Don't get me wrong, I liked their characters, they just didn't seem to have a lot of depth.    Especially Meadow seemed to have only few to no feelings or emotions at all. I get that she's supposed to be really tough but that doesn't mean she can't show any sort of emotions.
This bothered me in particular when she learns about some major secrets, because she just accepts everything she finds out without being surprised at all which lead to me not feeling particular wowed by the plot twists either. Zephyr is similar in the beginning, but I feel like his character got better with time.

For a moment it seemed like there would be Insta love which would have made me really mad, but that luckily wasn't the case.

But even though, I feel like this book has a lot of flaws the storyline still made me like this book. This certainly isn't the average dystopian world and it definitely has a lot of blood and violence. I did really like some of the side characters, especially Peri and Talan and overall I felt like the book got gradually better. I can definitely see why lots of people love this book but I didn't love it and I'm not sure yet if I'll continue with this series.