Tag: Spring Reads

Vicious PLL Book #16 by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one was a wild ride from start to finish but do we expect anything less for a finale? I’ll tell you it was way more interesting than the TV show final season.

So the girls start off on trial for Alison’s murder, they fell right into Alison’s trap and are paying the consequences but it’s not looking good for them. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time and painting themselves in a bad light.

They decide before the trial starts to go to Nick in prison to see if they can get him to share any information on Alison and where she might go because we all know she’s still alive. Nick doesn’t want to crack at first but Emily pushes him and he mentions something about his grandmother’s old house in Cape May. Bingo. The girls go on the hunt.

Sadly for them, Alison escapes them once again as they show up at the beach house and it’s empty. No traces of Alison but the scent of that God damn vanilla soap that’s mentioned every five minutes. So the girls accept their fate, they’re going to prison because the only sure way they were going to get out was if they found Alison and proved she was alive.

So for their last night of freedom, the girls decide they might as well stay in Cape May and enjoy their time. I mean they’d already broken the terms of their bail by leaving the state so why not? Though the whole time the girls are having fun in the sun, something is niggling away at Emily and she can’t handle it any longer.

Spencer awakes in the night to find Emily missing and a suicide note in the hotel room. Uh oh. She races out to the beach where she can see Emily being swept away by the current. Spencer tries to rescue Emily but the storm is too strong and she is unable to. Which leads us to believe that Emily has drowned.

I don’t believe this for a second because it’s the last book and there is no way that one of the girls ends up dead now. They’ve been through far too much. I had a feeling maybe Alison got to her or something but I couldn’t be quite sure until the end.

So while the girls are grieving the loss of their friend, they also have to prepare to go trial for murder. It’s not a good time for any of them and Aria even decides to flee to Europe. Which is ballsy of her because I didn’t think she would scare off so easily.

Aria’s Europe adventure is short-lived, she travels to Paris and then from there heads out to Amsterdam where she runs into Noel of all people – apparently he had a feeling she would run away and she had mentioned going to Europe before so he thought he would follow her. Some would say romantic but I would say he’s crazy for helping a fugitive lol. But doesn’t matter because they both end up getting caught in the end and being sent back to Rosewood.

Meanwhile, Spencer and Hanna have been facing the trial alone, they had a big fight at Emily’s funeral so aren’t even speaking so it’s been pretty icy in the court room but things are not going in their favour. I mean, it seemed unlikely things would turn out okay for them when there’s so much evidence against them.

Outside of the courtroom, Hanna and Mike have been planning a wedding which is insane to me but Mike proposed to Hanna and said he would wait for her so they were looking to tie the knot before the verdict was decided. It might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard but I gotta give props to both their families for agreeing to let it happen and for them to see it through in the end. With all the crap Hanna has had to go through over the last few years she deserved to have her fairytale wedding.

As for Spencer, she also considered fleeing the country and she was going to pay off someone to help her get a fake ID to do it but she decides in the end that she couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t imagine going off the grid and never seeing her friends again, plus she has reconnected with Wren of all people? And she wants to see where that goes. I still think Wren is a creeper but he was Spencer’s doctor after they rescued her from the storm after trying to save Emily and for some reason Wren was still hung up on Spencer and so yeah that’s a thing.

After the high of Hanna’s wedding the girls get pulled into the courtroom as the jury has decided on a verdict and surprise, surprise the girls are found: guilty.

I am not gonna lie, I was a little hopeful for them after their lawyer tried to get the truth out of Nick when he was called onto the stand but I guess that wasn’t enough to convince the jury the girls were innocent. I mean at this point, the media and everyone was calling for the girls to be found guilty it was going to be hard for them to prove their innocence.

So the girls go to prison, but at this point we are only halfway through the book so we have to know there’s more to the story right? Correct.

The girls are only in prison for five minutes because then they are called back to the courtroom as a surprise witness has just made an appearance: Emily. She’s not dead! Though we knew that.

Turns out she faked her death to track down Alison. She went back to the beach house and found an envelope with an address on it so she decided to see it through. And it turns out that she did track down Ali! Turns out her mother had been hiding her this whole time. Which I guess makes sense, Jessica hid CeCe for a while in the TV show and she seems like the kind of person who would do anything for her children. Even if they are psychotic.

So Ali gets sent to prison and the girls are free! Yay! And everyone lives happily ever after. Aria gets back with Noel and is able to sell her paintings and live her best life, Hanna stars in the movie about her life and gets into Parsons, Spencer decides to take a gap year and her book deal is back on and Emily is just trying to find herself and discover who she is without being tied down to her family.

And as always Alison is still planning revenge even from behind bars, she’s manipulated people from a psychiatric facility before and she can do it again. We love that for her.

And so there we have it! 16 books later and we are done! Well not quite, there are a couple of companion books which I’ll probably read too but will not do blog posts on them. I actually started Pretty Little Secrets directly after this one lol. Even though I should have read it forever ago considering the placement of it is right after Mona being A and Alison replacing her but it’s fine.

The point is we made it to the end of this series! And I am so proud of myself lol. 16 books is A LOT and I definitely could have given up at any point but I held on to this rollercoaster journey ’til the end. Will I take on another book series? Probably, there’s always one and it makes it easier to find what to read next if it’s a series but in the meantime I’m going to finish up this side book, and start reading all the other books I bought last year and still have not read lol.

Thanks for joining me on this PLL journey if you did, it’s been a long one. And with it, I think it ends the consistent blogging for a while, which is sad because I liked updating here a lot but I guess I’ll just need more things to write about lol. So yeah be back soon with something, or not. Guess we’ll see.

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I am finally starting to read the PLL books! I have wanted to do this for years but I’m finally committed to it now.

I also don’t know what to call these blog posts because I guess they are reviews but mainly it’s just going to be me comparing the books to the TV show and also trying to piece together clues about who A is.

First of all though disclaimer: I already know who A is in the books. How could you watch the TV show and search A theories without being spoiled? So I know who it’s going to be and now I wanna see if there are hints to see if I can figure it out or guess.

Anyway yes, so here we are PLL. I’ve actually read the first book before. Back in 2013 when I thought I was going to read the series. I got to the second book and stopped for whatever reason lol I swear I’ll get through this time.

So the first book is basically the pilot of the TV show. We are introduced to the four girls and who they are now that Alison is missing. The TV show also reveals the girls were at a sleepover when Ali went missing but we do not know this in the first book.

Mainly the things I focused most on in this book were the differences between the TV show.

For instance, everyone is hella rich in the books. So I don’t think Hanna will be having any money troubles.

They also have pets! How wild lol and Emily has a whole ass family of siblings and her dad isn’t in the army. How strange. Also, her mum is racist towards Maya’s family which is not cute.

The appearances of the girls are also different in the books but I won’t be mad about that because that always happens when doing book adaptations to movies/TV.

So yeah those were things that were strange to me. Also, A sends the girls a lot of messages in the first book. In the pilot, I think they all get one each. But A seems relentless in the first book, texting Aria nonstop about Ezra, leaving notes for Hanna and emailing Spencer. I like this though because it really shows how forceful A is.

Also A is Mona in the beginning so tell me how she be laying high in a field at Noel’s house and sending all these messages to Aria at the same time lol. I mean she was maybe acting and wrote a script to auto send messages but for real how did she know Aria was gonna see Ezra?

I think that’s the biggest thing I wondered about while watching the show is wondering how Mona even did it all. I mean they say some crap about her mental illness making her feel omnipresent or something but there had to be more. So I am hoping the book gives me some insight.

There was also the A chapter at the end of the book which, apparently back in 2013 I loved but today I read it and it was kind of cringey. It gave me some Gossip Girl vibes like very much “and who am I? That’s a secret I’ll never tell” sort of thing. Probably could have done without it.

Though I wonder how often these A chapters happen or maybe it’s just at the end of each book. I don’t know if I like it though. We’ll see how it goes from here on out.

Another thing that was wild to me is how they write Aria and Ezra. I mean I’m 100% against Ezria because it’s creepy, I might have felt differently back in the day but now I can’t stop being like “HE IS HER TEACHER AND SHE’S UNDERAGE”. So I’ll probably complain about them a lot in every blog post lol.

Anyway, the way Ezra is written is like he might as well be Aria’s age. I mean him getting jealous over her flirting with Noel is so icky. And even when he is hurt when he thought Aria told someone about them. “I really liked you” bro get over it she’s 16 and you’re in your early 20s…

Yeah, it’s all icky and I hate it. The way they write it in the book also makes it so casual and I hate that too. So yeah not a fan of Ezria can’t wait for it to be shut down. Hope it happens soon lol.

It’s also wild how they write about Wren and Spencer and how he immediately is way more attracted to her than Melissa and stuff. Like there’s no build-up, I wish there had been more to it…not sure what else I would have wanted lol but it just seemed a tad unbelievable.

Not to mention the way Spencer’s family treat her it’s so gross. How about being angry at the 20 something student who is preying on your 16-year-old and not your 16-year-old???

Yeah, that’s another inappropriate relationship. Ick.

Aside from all of that, the book is a strong start into something interesting. I’m excited to get into the series for real this time. I’ve read bits and pieces about the book series online so I’m interested to see how it all plays out.

And of course, I’ll be blogging about it along the way. This is the kind of series I feel I’m going to have a lot of thoughts about. So stay tuned for another post probably very soon!

May 2022 Reading Wrap Up

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I read quite a bit this month! Proud of myself considering last month was a bit of a fail reading-wise, but we soldier on.

Talking As Fast As I Can

I finished this one on the 1st May so I guess technically an April read? I covered it in my last post as well.

It was a nice one. Nothing super special I feel but a nice insight into Lauren Graham’s time as Lorelai in the Gilmore Girls reboot and some other fun anecdotes about her career as an actress. Would recommend it to any Gilmore Girls fan out there.

Sweet Water

I wasn’t planning on reading an Amazon Prime First Reads book this month, but I started it when I was out of the house and wanted something to read.

This one was actually a good one! Amazon Prime First Read selections can be hit or miss and I always have a love/hate relationship with the ones that I choose. But this one I liked. I’m not saying it was amazing though, murder mysteries are always touch and go with me.

I think this one had a good pace, I hate when a novel drags something out when they don’t need to. I think the mystery was just enough but nothing crazy that you couldn’t guess what was going on.

So yeah, this one would be on the higher end of 3 stars compared to others I’ve read. And I usually end up rating a lot of books I read 3 stars lol so I guess that’s saying something.

Cinderella is Dead

I read this one very quickly, credit to the fact that we were getting work done on our house and the electricity was off for a few hours haha.

I’m not usually one for fantasy books, which sounds ridiculous when I tell you I loved Twilight and Vampire Diaries in my teens lol but yeah I don’t know they just don’t usually have an appeal to me. So I was taking a chance with this one it sounded interesting.

I ended up really enjoying this, I think it was a good twist on an old story. I wasn’t expecting the plot twist at the end either. Honestly just a great story and something that kept me wanting to go back to see what would happen. I’d definitely recommend it if you enjoy fantasy/fairy tale type stories.

Pretty Little Liars

IT. IS. TIME.

I have been wanting to read this series basically since I watched the TV show, was disappointed in the ending and found out the books are better. I have read the first book I think twice before with the intention of reading more and I just haven’t. But I’m doing it this year.

So I actually managed to finish the first book in the series yesterday which means I can officially include it here! Yay! But because I want to talk more in-depth about the books they will be getting their own blog posts.

I want to discuss everything, the secrets, the drama the “who is A” of it all. I mean I know who it is already because the internet spoiled it for me long ago but I need to know if there are clues. I wanna relive my 16-year-old self’s life of being immersed in the PLL universe. So be ready for this because I am so ready for this.

But don’t worry, I will still be breaking up the series with other books in between. How many I couldn’t say but there will at least be a couple Bridgerton books thrown in there.

Anyway yes, that’s my reading for May, I don’t know if reading will pick up now I’ve started a series like PLL, in my head, those books are easy reads and not super long so I feel like I’ll get through them quickly but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

April 2022 Reading Wrap Up

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This one is going to be a short one because I managed to read ONE book the whole month haha.

I actually didn’t even think I was taking that long to read this one book but I guess I did because well…the facts are it took me almost four weeks to read this book.

I’m not mad about it though, these things happen I feel like because I was off for Easter and not travelling etc I wasn’t reading much and so it’s not a big deal. We will just work on reading a bit more next month to make up for it.

So the book I read this month was:

When He Was Wicked

This is the 6th Bridgerton book and I did not like it lol.

First of all the first couple of times, I did some reading on it I was falling asleep while reading. Like partly because I was tired but also the story was not exciting.

The story goes that Francesca is married to John the Earl of Kilmartin and she has a wonderful life. However, Michael, John’s cousin is secretly in love with her. Eh. John ends up passing away very suddenly and so Francesca becomes a widow, and long story short she and Michael fall in love.

And I really did not like it. I mean I will give credit that because Francesca is not a virgin the love scenes were different than the usual “first-time” ones which have been in every other Bridgerton book so far. So that was something.

But Francesca’s constant indecision and vague “I can’t marry Michael just because” thoughts were so annoying. I am an indecisive person so I hate to see it in someone I’m reading about too. Just because I know it’s annoying when I can’t make up my mind never mind a fictional character. And there’s not even precise reasoning behind the indecision other than Francesca refusing to see Michael as anything but a friend really.

I also found that Michael’s plan to essentially trap Francesca in marriage by impregnating her is not the vibe. I know she never rejected his advances but it did not sit right with me at all.

So yeah, I was very glad to be done with this one. I suppose I could have just stopped reading it if I disliked it, but I’ve made it so far into the series I have to see it through to the end now. I probably won’t read the side books to the series but if I at least get through the main Bridgerton siblings that’ll be enough. Not sure how the other books will go but I can feel myself getting a bit fed up with them so I’m hoping to end it soon.

That being said I am still enjoying the TV show and am hoping for some creative changes to make some of the stories a bit more modern and more tolerable so…we’ll see how that goes.

Currently Reading: Talking As Fast As I Can

I kind of want to count this as part of my read books in April since I managed to read a lot of it in the last few days. But it’s not finished and it’s not even like I have 10 pages left either. I’m about 3/4s of the way through.

This is a non-fiction book written by Lauren Graham where she shares some stories of her time on Gilmore Girls and how she came to be where she is today.

The book is okay, for a non-fiction book. Lauren’s writing style is basically the talking style of Lorelai Gilmore which makes for an easy read. If you watch Gilmore Girls then you know, the characters talk fast so the book’s pace is fast. If you can read at the speed they talk haha.

But yeah I think I will finish it up in the next few days and I’ll be onto something else.

Reading plans for May consist of, reading the last of the physical books I bought a few months ago. I feel like I’ve had them for ages and I don’t know what’s been taking so long to read them – I guess I have been reading some Kindle books in between.

Another big goal is to actually start the Pretty Little Liars book series. I want to read it this year and I have officially finished my TV show rewatch so I want to get into the books when I can. Hopefully, by June I will have started into them, from what I hear they are better than the TV show so I’m looking forward to seeing what they bring to the PLL universe.

I’m not sure how much I will read in May, but I’m hoping it’s more than one book haha. I do have a holiday booked at the end of May but I’ll be with friends so not sure how much reading will get done, so better work on getting some books in before then!

March 2022 Reading Wrap Up

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This month I was busy and so I feel like I wasn’t reading as much but we managed to finish one yesterday which makes a total of 3 books! Which I would say is about the average for me, so not bad.

Lie, Lie Again

When I started this one I thought I was going to really like it. But as I was reading it, I was realising the story wasn’t really going anywhere? I mean I thought there was going to be more mystery and drama.

The story follows three women who live in the same apartment complex. They all have their own secrets, which sounds interesting and mysterious but two of them have very basic and boring storylines. The most interesting one was Sylvia and even then it fell a bit flat for me.

I think it could be good in terms of a TV show but there are so many of them out there. So no, the book’s not super original but it was an enjoyable read. I just wish there had been a bit more drama or suspense to keep it a little more interesting. Still better than Open House though.

Loveboat, Reunion

I read the first book in this series a couple of years ago and I was so excited to get my hands on the sequel!

This book follows the story of Sophie and Xavier, they had a wild romance during Loveboat which ended up in flames. Now they are both trying to prove themselves as they return to the real world, Sophie as an AI uni student hoping to woo her professor and Xavier as a high school senior repeat who is struggling with dyslexia.

Honestly, when I first started reading it took me a while to figure out what was going on. I do not remember the first book at all lol so maybe I should have reread it before diving in here. This is a common theme for me with anything, even new seasons of TV shows I just never remember what happened beforehand. But oh well we figure out enough to keep reading.

Still, I really enjoyed this book! I was glad to learn more about Xavier and I was rooting for him and Sophie to work things out in the end. I definitely think I favoured Xavier’s storyline over Sophie’s; hers seemed a bit more surface level to me compared to Xavier’s struggles but I like how they intertwined.

I would highly recommend this book if you enjoyed the first one, I think it wraps up the Loveboat story nicely.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

I feel like I read a lot of murder mysteries but this one I could not put down. I loved this.

It’s not like there’s anything in this murder mystery that is super different from others but I liked the main character Pip a lot. And I enjoyed her determination to solve this mystery. Plus I think it was one where you couldn’t immediately guess the storyline and those are always the best.

I will 100% be picking up the other two books in the series to see what happens next.

And that includes another month of reading. I do not have a currently reading at the moment since I just finished A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder yesterday. Though the next book I know I will be reading is another Bridgerton one since it is due. I think it’ll be the first Bridgerton book about a sibling I know little about so it will be interesting.

Other books I plan to read in April are books that I bought physical copies of a few months ago and should probably get around to reading. That being said I don’t know how many books I’ll be reading since I know I’m busy towards the end of April but we’ll try to read what we can.

So far I have read 8 books out of 22 and so I think I’ll reach my goal in a few months’ time. Yay!

American Royals: Majesty by Katharine McGee Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I wasn’t planning on writing a whole blog post about this but then I started writing my Goodreads review and it kept growing and growing and so hi, how are ya?

We are back with the American Royals and even though it’s been over a year since I read the first one, I jumped back in like I never left. Which is good, considering the book still follows the point of view of five different characters and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time catching up again.

So in this book we are on the run up to Beatrice’s wedding because now that she is queen, she has to be married because apparently women are not capable of running a country on their own. *Rolls eyes*

But Beatrice is not the only one who is struggling when it comes to love. Everybody has issues with it in this book. I guess the first book was similar but I felt it was more prominent in this book. That or it just felt kind of repetitive?

Everyone was pretending to love someone but actually fell in love or realised they loved someone else and it was just a lot for one book. Like it definitely felt like every rom-com cliché ever wrapped into one book. Which was still enjoyable to read but like they could have made one plot line not involve loving someone else you know?

One love storyline I didn’t really like was the whole Jeff, Daphne, Ethan, Nina love square. Like date someone outside your own circle lads. I guess it makes sense for the drama and every TV show does something similar but I don’t know, Nina could’ve dated a nice boy from somewhere else and Daphne could’ve just kept hooking up with Ethan on the sly and that could have been fun. Ooh that’s totally fanfiction somewhere. Maybe I’ll write it lol.

Everyone else was fine, I mean the whole Sam and Marshall thing was totally obvious, but I was rooting for them. And actually the whole time I was reading about them it just made me think of Bridgerton because the exact same thing happens to Daphne and the Duke. And well I’m a sucker for those kind of stories it seems haha.

Beatrice and Teddy I was surprised about to be honest. I thought Beatrice would have wanted to be with Conor but it makes sense for her to fall for Teddy. And so I support it because Teddy is a great guy.

But what we love more than Beatrice falling in love is her becoming the strong independent queen of America. I think it’s great she is not going to get married right away and rule on her own. She doesn’t need a man, it’s nice she found a man but she don’t need him to rule her country. We stan Queen Bee.

Speaking of ladies we stan, I also love Daphne. She gives me Blair Waldorf vibes and I am here for it. We love a strong woman who will do what it takes to get what she wants. Even if that means alienating the man she wants from everyone else so she can become a princess.

I just can’t believe Himari forgave her for the coma and sending her away to Japan. But that’s what best friends do I guess lol. Himari is the Serena to Daphne’s Blair. I kind of hope Himari does come back for some kind of revenge because that would be totally Gossip Girl and I would eat that shit up.

Overall I really loved this book. I gave it 4/5 because of all the love stuff which was too much for me. Especially towards the end, everyone is declaring their love for everyone and I’m like “tell me what the security threat was please” lol. Though the security threat turned out to be nothing I would have loved a little plot twist thrown in there.

I am kind of hoping for another book in the series just because I want to see Beatrice really step into her role as queen, and Sam and Nina on their adventures with no boys and of course Daphne and how she deals with losing the boy she really loved.

At the same time though I know this could lead to a slippery slope where it starts off strong and then loses its way and I don’t want that to happen. So if there’s another book I’ll be down for the ride but I just don’t want it to get out of hand where it becomes terrible but redeems itself in the last book because that’s how these things go.

So those were my thoughts on American Royals. I am going to be digging into the first Bridgerton book next and I’m excited but also not sure what I’m going to be getting into. Just because you like the TV show doesn’t always mean you’ll like the books, so we see what happens. I’m sure I’ll be back soon to share all my thoughts on it.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

After leaving the Oasis three years ago, we are back again with the sequel to Ready Player One. Not gonna lie I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one and after my boyfriend said it got mixed reviews I was worried it was going to be terrible.

It wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great either to be honest. I mean, Ready Player One is the kind of book that I think didn’t really need a sequel but they gave it one anyway and I guess it was just okay.

In this one, we see Wade on a new quest within the Oasis except this time, it’s more of a life or death situation. He must work to find the Seven Shards of the Siren’s soul before he and thousands of other Oasis users are trapped forever, thanks to a villain in the shape of an AI version of Halliday.

Honestly, the whole storyline was so wild and farfetched, which is crazy to say considering the first book but yeah I don’t know this whole evil Anorak/James Halliday situation was not my favourite. I suppose that doesn’t bode well for me if I wasn’t feeling the story right out of the gate but we stuck with it.

Plus, Wade was kind of the worst in this book. He was so helpless? He couldn’t do any of his quests alone to save his life and it was sad. I mean I guess there is some underlying lesson here, that he shouldn’t isolate himself in the Oasis or in his real life or something but even so, he didn’t seem to think for himself at all.

Also sad that L0hengrin wasn’t mentioned more I thought we would hear more from her after her introduction but unfortunately not. She at least sounded like an interesting character who probably would have made it further in the quest than Wade if he hadn’t had the help of his friends.

Naturally along with the first book, this book referenced a lot of things I had no idea about. Like all the John Hughes movies and Prince. Which is fine, but part of me felt like this book just spent a lot of time describing things that were so unnecessary, like is it important to note every character an actor played in a John Hughes film while trying to complete a quest? I don’t think so. But then again, it’s been a long time since I read the first book so I don’t remember if it was the same in the level of detail it provided in things. Even so, I felt like there was a lot of stuff that could have been cut out.

Don’t even get me started on that ending though.

Again, it sounds wild given the whole idea from the first book but the whole “everyone-live-in-the-Oasis-as-an-AI-even-after-you-die” thing is so farfetched and ridiculous to me. At least the idea of the actual Oasis seemed easier to get behind because I guess we have similar technology now but yeah maybe I’m just being harsh for the sake of being harsh. I know I’ve gotten behind some pretty crazy storylines in TV shows and books before but I guess I just wasn’t buying this one.

Overall the actual story was okay, I think it would make an interesting movie but when reading it. it fell flat for me. I’m hoping there won’t be another book because I don’t see where we go from here and I’m not sure I want to go there. But yeah, no big deal, now we’ve read it, we know what happens and we can move on, hopefully to something I’ll enjoy a little more.

One of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

We are back with the sequel of One of Us is Lying.

This one was okay, I didn’t find myself enjoying it as much as the first one but there’s not really much to complain about. I don’t know what it was about this one that I didn’t like as much, I guess because there wasn’t as much suspicion around the main characters when it came to the murder? I don’t know.

I think one of the main things is that I missed the old gang. I mean they were still a part of the story, but the focus had been moved onto a younger group, featuring Bronwyn’s sister, Maeve, her friend Knox and a girl called Phoebe.

I also think I was expecting the Truth or Dare game to last longer than it did, and be a little bit more dramatic? It seemed a bit tame to be honest, which I guess is wild considering someone did die but I don’t know I thought there would be more suspense for it.

This book still followed along with the same vibe of the first one, I liked the fact things stayed consistent with the writing and the world even though the story was different. It made it easy to get sucked into the world again and I enjoyed that.

Obviously things escalated towards the end in ways that I wasn’t expecting, I had no idea who was the killer this time and I didn’t really try to figure it out. I mean I had an idea that something was going on with Phoebe’s sister but it definitely took a turn that I wasn’t expecting.

I also wasn’t a huge fan of the last twist in that it actually turned out to be Owen, Phoebe’s little brother who told Jared to continue on the game like I don’t know why but it seemed like something that would just never happen. I guess it adds shock value but eh, could have done without it.

I feel like I needed a little longer to process everything when Maeve figured it out though because this story had a lot more going on in terms of how the game was orchestrated and all that, so I think maybe if that was drawn out a tiny bit more it could have helped. Though I know for the pace they were going for that wouldn’t have worked.

But yeah overall a good read, sad that it didn’t hold quite the same interest for me as the first book but I can’t really tell you what was off-putting to me besides missing the original group. Though could have probably done without all the talk about Cooper and him being a big baseball star and all that, we get it, he’s cool. But I did love that Nate and Bronwyn were end game because that’s all I needed in my life after the first book really.

And so that is where we leave Bayview High for now. I don’t know if that will be us leaving for good but I don’t really know where they would go from here. Though I am still interested in that TV show they are making, I just need to keep a look out for it in the future.

Not sure what I’ll be reading next, but I think it would be nice to step back from the murder mysteries for a bit. That being said I think half my Amazon Prime First Reads are murder mysteries at the minute lol. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll find something.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I started reading this immediately after the Handmaid’s tale. I think I read the first 20 pages or so and then didn’t touch it for like almost a week and a half haha.

Again like the previous book, I found this one hard to get into. I guess I just sort of throw myself into books without taking time to digest the characters and making sense of what was going on.

But in this book there were three different point of views and naturally it took me a while to figure out which was which. Especially because two of them were named very similar, the difference being an A or a B at the end.

After a while though I picked up what was happening.

I really enjoyed this book. I think way more than the first. In this book we find out more about how the other women lived in Gilead, the Aunts and the little girls who were growing up to become wives.

This world fascinates me a lot which I think is why even though I took a long period away from reading this book I went back to it. I had to know what happened.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when jumping into this one. I was surprised that they didn’t mention Offred from the first novel directly. Though it is assumed that she was the mother of both the girls in the story.

Overall, I found it to be a good read. I can definitely understand why the series gets a lot of attention.

I don’t know if there will be more books to the series, though I see it being quite an easy series to add to over time. But that being said I would also be glad if it was just the two books.

I still have yet to watch the TV show but I think I will be adding it to my list of shows to watch now I’ve read both books. I know it will only be loosely based on the first book since the second one was only released last year but that’s fine. I’m just interested to know where they take it.

And with this book complete I am now halfway to my goal of reading 30 books this year! I think I’m making good progress and am a little bit ahead of where I should be so that’s nice.

I’m glad that even in our current circumstances and even with my excessive amounts of Animal Crossing play that I can still find time to read lol.

Not sure what my next book will be, I think maybe one I picked up from Waterstones at the start of the year.

As usual you can expect some kind of reading update in the future. Whether it is here or on GoodReads.

~ Courtney x

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I wasn’t sure about this one but I decided to give it a go after someone gave me a brief description of the TV show. I feel very behind with this but it’s better late than never right? Plus I haven’t seen the TV show yet so I might as well take a chance with the book if I don’t really know what to expect.

I have to be honest, I almost gave up on this one. I was finding it hard to get into the story as the timelines kept changing from the past and the present, it was initially hard to keep up with the change. The writing style was also not an easy one to get into, I have been reading a mix recently so I’m not surprised when a writing style isn’t what I am expecting, but normally I can get into it fine, this one just took longer than most.

I would say I got into it after the first 100 pages or so, I know they say you should read a book until at least 50 pages in to see if you like it or not. But to me, if you make it that far you might as well see it to the end. I can’t just leave something unfinished, even if I didn’t like it.

But with this one, I found it easier to read big chunks at a time and then leave it for a few days. I think it’s the kind of thing you have to be in the mood to read. But we made it through in the end.

Overall I did enjoy the story, it’s an interesting take on what society would do to handle a situation. It’s actually made me interested in the TV show just to see what happens with that.

I do wish we knew more about the transition process and also about what happened to Offred after she was captured. When I got to the end and it was explained the story was told through Offred in a bunch of tapes and they weren’t in order, it suddenly made sense that the story was so haphazard in it’s switch between past and present. It is still sad that we don’t know for sure what happened to her.

I know there is a sequel now but I’m not sure if it will even tell us what happened. Though I probably will read it because I am interested to see what will come from that and what we will learn about this world.

And as I said before I will probably watch the TV show too, it’ll be different from the book for sure, considering the TV show has 3 seasons now and you can’t stretch a book that far out. But I want to know what direction they take the story.

While I am surprised it took me so long to get through this book after reading my last two books quite quickly I am not going to let it deter me from my reading journey. I am basically halfway through my goal to read 30 books this year and I would like to try and keep my pace up.

I know it’s not a race, but I don’t want to get lazy with it and not pick up another book for months again because I do quite enjoy my reading time.

So hopefully I’ll be back with another book review soon, if not then I’ve been distracted by Animal Crossing as usual lol.

~ Courtney x