Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller Published: Flatiron Books, April 2017 My Rating: 5/5 stars "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages" - William Shakespeare If We Were Villains is often described as the theateric, YA-equivalent of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and I can honestly say that I think it deserves that comparison. It is a novel about the dark side of academia, obsession and the social isolation that elitism can bring. The curtain opens to Oliver, a man who's recently been released from prison after a ten year sentence for a crime in his past. Upon his release, he finally opens up about his story, to the detective who was in charge of his case at the time. He tells the story of 7 young Shakespeare actors, for whom the line between on-stage and off-stage begins to blur. 7 talented, but impressionable young people, who end up playing the same roles over and over, no matter whether there's an audience or not. Alexander, the Villain Filippa, the Extra James, the Hero Meredith, the Femme Fatale Wren, the Ingénue Richard, the Tyrant and Oliver himself, forever the Sidekick These 7 actor take part in a dangerous play. One that has an ending as inevitable as the famous tragedies of Shakespeare himself. One that will end with the curtain falling, perhaps for more than one of them, for good... If We Were Villains actually took me by surprise. Until about half way trough I was thinking this was going to be a 4, maybe 4.5 star read for me. Then the ending came, and solidified the fifth star for me. This was such a clever, and masterfully constructed novel, that upon finishing it, I almost wanted to start it straight over to see everything I missed. There is so much to think about and so many parallels to Shakespeares work, that for every flaw I could find about it, I somehow feel the author had a deliberate reason to let things play out in this way. Also: can we just remember this is a debut... Take your bow miss Rio: a standing ovation from me awaits you! At this moment, I don't feel like going full in-depth on the story, out of fear of spoiling something, but also because I need some time to think on it, and possibly even reread parts. If you would like me to do a full review/analysis in the future, please do let me know and I might still do that. For now I just want to say: if you like Shakespeare, (classic) theater and/or The Secret History by Donna Tartt: don't miss If We Were Villains . Find this book on Goodreads

This second edition of my Books in Pairs -series, is going to be all about books that need a little more love. I’m going to mention 10 well-known and well-loved novels, and pair them up with a similar, less-known novel that is equally as deserving of your attention. Of course, as always, these recommendations work both ways: if you read the less-known novel first, you might till like the more well-know one too. Without further ado: let’s get pairing! If you liked: The Secret History by Donna Tartt you might like: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio Out of all the pairs I’m going to mention, this is going to be the most obvious one. Both novels focus on the dark side of academia, the cult-like social aspects of elitism the danger of obsession. In The Secret History, a group of pretentious Classical Greek scholars spiral out of control and murder one of their own. In If We Were Villains, the same thing happens to a group of pretentious Shakespeare Actors. Both are excellent, deeply disturbing and thought-provoking novels, written with great skill. If you like one, I certainly feel you enjoy the other as well. If you liked: Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier you might like: The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea Both Rebecca and The Glass Woman follow a young woman who enters a marriage with a recently widowed man in an isolated community. Both women are haunted by the ghost of their husbands previous wives, and the mysteries surrounding their deaths. Despite a very different setting (1800’s Iceland vs. 1900’s England), The Glass Woman is far too underrated for reading so much like a classic favorite. If you liked: Circe or The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller you might like: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker Madeline Millers retellings of Greek Classics have been bestsellers ever since their release, and for good reason. However, that seems to have put The Silence of The Girls by Pat Barker a little in its shadow. Like The Song of Achilles, The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of the Iliad by Homer. Like Circe, it gives voice to a woman (Breseïs) that had little to none in the original. If you liked: The Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo you might like: The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi If you loved the combination of a ragtag cast of unique characters and a fantasy-heist-plot that The Six of Crows had, you have to give The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi a try. Both feature a cast of 6 misfits (all with their own unique skillset), coming together to steal an artifact of great importance. Both have an element of fantasy that isn’t too dominant, and both brought me that “found-family” feeling that I loved so much. Although the Six of Crows is definitely more dark in both tone and setting, The Gilded Wolves may just be a worthy alternatives for fans. If you liked: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor you might like: City of Woven Streets by Emmi Itaränta This is the loosest connection on this list, but you have to forgive me, as it’s hard to find books quite like either one of these, which is the main reason I love them both. All I want to say about these two is that they share a dreamlike quality, not only in the story, but in the worldbuilding and writing style as well. Both, I think, are best entered blind, and even though it might take a little bit to get a foothold in this dreamlike landscape, once you do, you’ll be completely swept up in the world. Additionally: both these novels feature a romance that I didn’t hate, which is a rare thing for me in YA fantasy these days. If you liked: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness you might like: The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan A Monster Calls and The Astonishing Color of After are both magical realism novels that focus on the grief surrounding the death of a mother. Not only are both these novels extremely close to my heart, they are also both on the very short list of books to have ever made me physically cry. Having lost my own mother at a young age, I can say that both these books have made me feel more understood than many others ever have. Although A Monster Calls is technically marketed as middle-grade, whilst The Astonishing Color of After is YA, the protagonists aren’t too far apart in age, and I feel like both work best for an audience of 13 years and up. A Monster Calls has found its way into the hands and hearts of many. In contrast, if feel like The Astonishing Color of After hasn’t gotten the wide exposure it deserves yet. If you are ready for a broken heart and a box of soggy tissues: both these novels come with my highest recommendations. If you liked: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab you might like: The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell The Last Magician is what I imagine the lovechild of Passenger by Alexandra Bracken and A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab to be like. Although one is set in London, and the other in New York, both these books gave me similar vibes when I read them. Both are action packed urban fantasies, featuring some kind of “dimensional travel”, and both feature a cast of snarky and charismatic characters. If you liked A Darker Shade of Magic, but prefer New York to London, this might be for you. If you liked: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley you might like: Challenger Deep by Neal Schusterman Magonia and Challenger Deep have a lot more in common than you might think upon first glance: both are highly unique novels, that won’t appeal to everybody. Both weave fantasy elements into a contemporary story, as a metaphor for illness. Both protagonists enter an “alternative world”, set on a ship that, bizarre as it might be, still holds a thin thread of connection to the reality the characters face in the “real world”. Both of these novels have made quite the impression on me, and both deserve more love than the got in my opinion, even though I can see how they may not be everybody’s cup of tea. If you liked: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton you might like: When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore When I think of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, I think of magical realism written in lush prose, featuring a tragically beautiful character, searching for her place as a misfits in her small community. When I think of When the Moon was Ours, I think of roughly the same. It’s a mystery to me why Anna-Marie McLemores work doesn’t get more love in the bookish community. Although her writing might be a little too rich and lush for some peoples taste, I feel confident to say that she is one of the best (YA) magical realism authors out there. If you liked: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson you might like: In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey I pitched In The Night Wood once as “The Haunting of Hill House meets The Shadow of the Wind”. A man, obsessed with a nearly forgotten gothic horror author, moves into a secluded manor over the summer. Soon he realizes that the house and the surrounding property may not be all they first appear to be, which begs the question: is it the house that is haunted, or the person who just moved into it? Both slow burn literary fiction novels, with a gothic horror edge to them. In The Night Wood definitely deserves more than just 500 ratings on Goodreads, so fans of Shirley Jackson: don’t pass this one up. All books mentioned are linked to their Goodreads page for your convenience. I hope you got some recommendations out of this, and I'd love to hear about any well-known&less-well-known bookpairing you can come up with.

Genre: Classic, Gothic Mystery Published: Virago Press 2003, Originally Published 1938 My Rating: 4.5/5 stars “If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.” Dear reader, I have a shameful confession to make: I somehow made it to 2019, without ever touching Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. Now was the time to rectify that grave mistake. Everybody, by now, is familiar with the story of Rebecca. A timid young woman falls in love with a wealthy widower, but upon moving into his manor finds herself haunted in many ways by the spirit of his first deceased wife Rebecca. For some reason, I long thought this to be a romance novel, which is why I never picked it up before. It’s not a romance novel, nor would I call it a full on gothic-horror story. It’s a beautifully constructed story of character development, with a hint of suspense and mystery mixed in. I’ve heard many people say that the first half takes some time to get into, but in all honesty, I think I enjoyed that part the most. We see our protagonist struggling to find her place in her new life, having to literally fill the place of her predecessor. I deeply felt for her and her insecurities about her place in Maxims life. Seeing my own father getting into a new relationship after my mother passed away, has made me realize how large the presence of a dead spouse can be in a relationship, and Daphne DuMaurier captures that perfectly in this novel. There is an impossible pressure on the shoulders of the new partner: an expectation that no human can ever fulfill, and our protagonist knows this. Rebecca is incorruptible, untouchable, seemingly forever elevated and preserved in a state of perfection with her death. How can any new partner compete with the memory of the old…? As the novel progresses, we learn that not everything is as it seemed in Maxims previous marriage. The twist near the end did manage to surprise me, although I do have to say that some of the circumstances were a little too convenient and the solution a little too quickly. That being said: I was pleasantly surprised and then some by this book. I sometimes feel like some popular classics don’t age well (I know, unpopular opinion), but Rebecca is a novel that truly stands the test of time. Highly recommend it for anyone who, like me, has been living under a rock or just hasn’t gotten to this yet. Add this book on Goodreads

Post Mortem: A thourough investigation of a book after its passing. May be used to help determine cause and manner of death, and prevent repeat events in the future. Subject: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James, Published by Riverhead Books Primary Cause of Death: Absolute Vulgarity “Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth.” - Quote that pretty much describes my feelings about ¾ of this book It’s not often that I rate or review a book that I technically haven’t read front to back. Then again, it’s not often either that I deeply and utterly hate a book as much as I did Black Leopard, Red Wolf. I wanted to DNF this from around page 20, but I read almost 400 pages until I allowed myself to skim the rest, so I feel I’ve read enough to form my opinion on it. Many of my friends have given this 5-stars, but unfortunately this book was NOT for me, and went straight from my “most-anticipated-of-2019” to my “worst-reading-experiences-of-all-time”-list. Let me start of by saying: there was a reason I was anticipating this novel, and some of that anticipation was fulfilled. This is indeed a GoT-like epic fantasy with a dark and gritty, elaborate world. It has its roots in African mythology, which was very awesome indeed, and the plot was actually intriguing to me. HOWEVER: Allow me to list my reasons for strongly disliking this novel. 1. The protagonist is an absolute rotten-to-the-core asshole The story sets him up to be basically Geralt from the Witcher: a mercenary with a *distinct* personality and a unique skillset, sent off to solve other peoples problems for payment. Except that following Tracker is not like following Geralt, who is gruff but cynically charming in his own way. Following Tracker is more like watching one of those “The Witcher Playthrough, but I go on a killing spree for no reason”-video’s on Youtube. “Oh and not to mention, I rape and torture everybody as well…” If that wasn’t enough reason to hate the main character: he is misogynistic, frighteningly homophobic, immature and completely and utterly obsessed with sex. Now I’m not someone who rates a book 1-star, just because I hate the main character. Yet if you make it to the point where being inside the characters head makes the reading-experience feel like literal torture to the reader: you’re going to get points knocked off my rating. 2. GRAPHIC EVERYTHING!!! No, seriously. Think of any disgusting thing on the top of your head, and it’s probably in here somewhere, described in utter revolting detail. Sex. Rape. Gore. More rape. Animal-abuse/Bestiality. Murder. Mutilation and desecration of bodies. Rape of children… Seriously: the list goes on and on. I consider myself to have a fairly okay tolerance to this sort of thing, even though I don’t enjoy it. For God’s sake Marlon James, I’m a medical intern with a strong stomach, and yet you somehow manage to describe wounds and genitalia in a way that actually grosses me out than actually having to stick my hands into those of real patients. Seriously, that almost merits a congratulation. The worst part is that none of it felt like it was necessary for the plot, or for the message the author wanted to bring across. To me, it felt like it was more for the sake of sensationalism and to “gross-out” the reader. I get wanting to provoke an emotion in a reader, but torture-porn is about the most cheap and vulgar way to do that in my opinion. 3. Unbalanced writing style This is sold as “literary fantasy”, so I can’t review this without mentioning the “literary” part about it. Marlon James sure makes an effort to make some sentences… some hella long sentences… with seemingly as many words in them as possible. Until al of a sudden he doesn’t anymore and we are left with a very simplistic, stocky style that ties us over until the next “literary outburst”. It’s basic writing with occasional pretentious purple prose, and it honestly feels all over the place. Not to mention: if you’re trying to make a literary effort, it doesn’t help to interrupt your flowery, meandering language every 6 sentences with some nice talk of shit, cum, or how the shape of a mountain reminds you of a woman’s labia… Call me a prude, but I don’t think it’s the best match. 4. Pacing issues After (skimming through) the second half, I see a big break in style and pacing between start and finish. The first half could have been, not even halved but quartered. Nothing of great importance to the plot happens during the first 200+ pages, other than establishing the character as an ass. I thing the end is honestly better, but I have to say that I don’t think slugging though the rest of this disturbing and vulgar mess of a start was worth it for me. Preventable Death? I don't know... Maybe I’m just a feeble-hearted weakling who can’t appreciate the beauty of a masterfully written dark fantasy. I don’t rule it out. If you loved this book: power to you! I’m happy for you. That doesn’t take away that I absolutely hated my experience with this, and I won’t be recommending this to my friends. Add this book on Goodreads

Genre: Poetry, Magical Realism Published: Bloodaxe, April 2019 My rating: 4.5/5 stars "Smash this circus to the ground. Howl fiercely at the moon" The Girl Aquarium by Jen Campbell was one of my most anticipated releases of 2019, for multiple reasons. Not only did I love Jen’s previous works, especially her latest short-story collection The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night, I also love Jen as an author and as a member of the booktube community. This always makes me a little nervous to pick up a new release by such an author, but I’m happy to say that this did not disappoint. The Girl Aquarium delivered exactly what I’ve come to expect from Jen Campbell: slightly unusual but stunning language, imagery as dark as it is whimsical, and fairytales and myths woven into topics that are clearly deeply personal to Jen herself (as many of them are to me). It explores sexuality, love, bodily differences, disability and disfigurement, the uncertainty of change and what the future holds. Jen is a master of stringing together words that seemingly don’t belong together, but form a completely unique and coherent picture in my head. Her work reminds me of that of Kirsty Logan, or even the poems of Sylvia Plath (a bigger compliment I cannot give, as Ariel is my favorite poetry collection of all time), in the sense that they have a dreamlike quality to them. An uneasy fever dream that is, that feels familiar, yet leaves you with a sense of estrangement and unease. To me, it feels like being lost, but also like home. I’m sorry if that makes zero sense to anyone but me, but it’s the best way I can describe the feeling these authors give me. The only downside to this collection for me was a purely personal one. A portion of the poems are written in Georgie dialect. For me, no matter how comfortable and familiar I get, English will always remain my second language, and having to put effort into understanding a dialect always takes the flow out of my reading a little. That being said, I do see how it adds personality to the writing and I can see how it could be a selling point for many other readers. Am I biased for knowing a little more about the authors background surrounding the themes she addresses? Maybe... Did I enjoy it even more because I had that understanding? Very possible indeed. Is this thematically completely up my alley and definitely in my “soft spot”? Yes. Yes it is. Does any of this stop me from wholeheartedly recommending you read this? Nope, absolutely not. Please give it a try if this sounds at all interesting to you. Favorite poems: - The Exorcism of the North Sea - Memories of Your Sister in a Full Body Wetsuit - The Girl Aquarium - A Song of Herself - Hello, Dark (almost made me cry) - The angel of the North - The Woman’s Private Looking-Glass Add this book on Goodreads

When even I (coldblooded fish that I am) have worn my shorts already, you know summer has started for real. Dreams of summer break, outdoor swimming, reading at my local park and sitting on terraces until late in the evening are appearing before my mind’s eye. I conveniently forget that I don’t actually have a summer break and will be working every single weekday until at least September (Dutch medical school for you there…). Is that going to stop me from making an overly ambitious TBR for the summer though? Of course not! I’ve seen many other TBR’s packed to the brim with contemporaries and romances for the summer, but to me, this summer feels like a fantasy-kind-of-summer. I have 4 back-list novels, 4 books that were released in the first half of 2019, and 2 that are to be released in the next few months. I have not (yet) included ARCs in this list. Also, spoiler alert: the majority is fantasy or magical realism, and most of them are chunkers as well. The Muse of Nightmares – Laini Taylor This is number one on my list for a good reason: it’s ridiculous that I haven’t read this yet! Strange the Dreamer is one of my favorites books of all time and The Muse of Nightmares was my most anticipated release of 2018. Yet due to personal circumstances, I wasn’t in a good headspace last winter and I didn’t want that to affect my opinion of a potential new favorite. Hopefully, this summer is going to be a better time because, man… I cannot wait for this. Godsgrave – Jay Kristoff I was pushing this ahead to avoid having to wait an eternity for the last book to come out, but with Darkdawn just around the corner, it’s finally time! It’s my current read as of posting this, and I’m so happy to be back in this world again after such a long time. I’m equal parts excited and scared every time I pick it up, as with Jay Kristoff, no character is safe… Kings of the Wyld – Nicholas Eames Kings of the Wyld is a quite recent addition to my TBR, mostly after hearing Holly from HollyHeartsBooks rave about this series. Judging from the description, as well as what I’ve heard from others, this is going to be a darkly hilarious high fantasy about a band of elderly has-been mercenaries, banding together for one last job. This might be just what I need this summer, and in stead of letting it sit on my TBR-shelf forever, I hope to pick it up now that my excitement for it is still fresh. Freshwater – Akwaeke Emezi This book was already on my radar from its release, yet I was hesitant about what to expect for some reason. This year however, it’s proceeded to be nominated for seemingly every single literary price out there, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about it, so I don’t have any excuses anymore. Although it’s the shortest book on this list, I have a feeling it’s going to be a difficult one to read, but hopefully well worth it. Middlegame – Seanan McGuire From the shortest book on my list, right over to the largest at almost 550 pages, we have Middlegame by Seanan McGuire. I wasn’t the biggest fan of her shorter works, as I always felt like something was missing. When I heard she was coming out with a full-length adult fantasy novel, about alchemy and occultism nonetheless, I was all over this. Hopefully, this doesn’t disappoint. Where the Forest Meets the Stars – Glendy Vanderah Another of my most anticipated releases of 2019 that I haven’t gotten to is Where the Forest Meets the Stars. This magical realism story that deals with grief and the loss of a parent has all the hallmarks of becoming a new favorite as well, and just like with The Muse of Nightmares, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to pick it up. It’s been drawing my eye and tickling my mind for quite some time now, so I hope to be able to get to this soon. Salt Slow – Julia Armfield I’ve been looking for a good literary fiction short story collection for the summer, but just kept being disappointed by most that I picked up for some reason. Then Salt Slow entered my radar as it was praised pre-release by a lot of reviewers I trust. Combine that with a description that is very much up my alley, and I all of a sudden couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, my request for an ARC was denied, so I had to wait for the official release on May 30th. Right on time to make it to my summer reading list though! On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong What first drew my to this book, back in 2018, was the gorgeous title, as well as the author, by whom I’ve read and loved samples of his poetry in the past. Since it’s release, everybody I trust has been shouting their praise for it, and the only reason I haven’t picked it up just yet, is that I currently can’t justify 22 euro’s (yes, that’s the askingprice in the Netherlands currently) plus shipping for a book… That being said, this is one the books that is highest on my list to read. With a 4.28 Goodreads rating, based on >600 reviews, I have very high hopes. These Divided Shores – Sarah Raasch These Divided Shores is the sequel to These Rebel Waves, and is set to be released in August of 2019. I really loved These Rebel Waves earlier this year and can’t wait to see what happens next in this duology. For my review on book one, click here. House of Salt and Sorrow – Erin A. Craig Last but not least, we have House of Salt and Sorrow, which is potentially going to be my biggest gamble of the year. I know barely anything about this book, but I read so many of my buzzwords in the synopsis already that it was one of the maximum of 3 books a year I allow myself to pre-order. The story of a cursed family, sisterly bonds, ghostly visions and elements of fairytale retelling, all set in a manor by the sea… Please book, please don’t let me down… I hope you enjoyed my summer reading plans, and possibly got some inspiration for books to add to your own TBRs. I’d love to know what books are on your summer-list and what summerreleases you’re excited about. Until then, happy reading and enjoy your summer!

Many booklovers will be able to relate to that feeling of excitement you get when you hear a new book announced, that sounds just perfect to you. Many of those same people will also know that nervous pinch you feel once you realize that that list of anticipated releases is becoming a little bigger than either your limited shelf-space or your wallet can support… Nonetheless, most of us will have a few authors that, for one reason or another, seem to have a free pass to skip those scruples, and find their way into your pre-order cart no matter what. I, of course, have such a list of my own as well, that I’d like to share with you today. I chose 10 of them to talk about, ranging from very well known, to completely underrated, but all of them deserving of a little more love. 1. Kirsty Logan When the idea of this post first appeared in my mind, there was one name that immediately attached itself to it. If nothing else, I was going to mention Kirsty Logan. If you’ve been with me for some time you might know Kirsty Logan has been a constant factor on both my yearly favorites lists, as well as my all-time favorite list, for the past 2 years. She writes low-fantasy/magical realism stories with beautifully written characters, that are often have an ocean- or sea-side element to them. Her stories deal with themes of grief, family, and finding your place in the world whilst being different in some way, whether it be sexuality, heritage or even a physical disfigurement. Not many authors have the power to string words together in the way that just moves something in my soul. Sofar: Kirsty Logan does. I’ve adored everything she’s written before and am eagerly anticipating everything to come after. Favorite book by this author: The Gloaming Upcoming release: Things We Say in the Dark (October 3rd 2019, Harvill Secker) 2. Laini Taylor You might notice that the YA-authors are a little underrepresented on this list, which is mostly due to the fact that I pick my YA books based on their synopsis, more so than the author. If the plot sounds like something that I won’t enjoy, I’ll probably not pick it up, no matter who wrote it. An exception to that rule is Laini Taylor: I will read this woman’s extended grocerylist, just for her prose. For me, it strikes the perfect balance of being lyrical, without turning to obnoxious purple prose. Laini Taylor is very well known in the YA-community for her debut series The Daughter of Smoke and Bone and her Strange The Dreamer Duology. She writes highly original fantasy stories, with distinct characters that I’ve come to love as all-time favorites. If you are, like me, tired of seeing the same story-arc, and the same worldbuilding in YA over and over again, trust me: you won’t have that problem with Laini Taylor. Favorite book by this author: Strange the Dreamer No upcoming releases announced 3. Celeste Ng Another very well known author, that barely needs an introduction, but this time in the literary fiction category. Celeste Ng gained a lot of attention with both her debut Everything I Never Told you, as well as her sophomore novel Little Fires Everywhere. Personally: I absolutely loved both of them. Celeste Ng writes about family dynamics and parental relationships like nobody else. Little Fires Everywhere is a mosaic of different mother-daughter relationships clustered in a suburban neighborhood, whilst Everything I Never Told You focusses on a single family and how parental expectations can impact not just the life of that family but everybody around them. Ng shows an incredible intelligence and insight into these complex relations, that sets it apart from other works in this genre. Favorite book by this author: Everything I Never Told You No upcoming releases announced 4. Sarah Moss Sarah Moss was an author I’d never heard from, until half way throught 2018, when I heard Jen Campbel mention her on her Youtube channel. On a whim, I picked up The Tidal Zone, and I was blown away by it. Sarah Moss, just like Celeste Ng, is at her best with stories about relationships, whether they be familial, marital or friendly. I still have her duology Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children left to read, but am already on the lookout for anything new she comes out with. Favorite book by this author: The Tidal Zone No upcoming releases announced 5. Emily St. John Mandel Even though I’ve only ever read one of her books, that one book already made enough of an impression on me to add Emily St. John Mandel to this list. She writes literary fiction with a twist of another genre mixed in. For example: Station Eleven is literary fiction set in a post-apocalyptic world, and Last Night in Montreal has a thriller element woven into it. But above all, her stories are about the character, which is what draws me to her work. Not only am I keeping an eye out for anything new she releases, I’m also planning on reading her debut novel Last Night in Montreal very soon. Favorite book by this author: Station Eleven Upcoming releases: The Glass Hotel (To be announced, 2019, Picador) 6. Erin Morgenstern Speaking of authors I trust based off reading a single book of theirs, the following 3 entries on this list are debut-authors that have only released one book so far, but are for sure destined for great things if you ask me. First and most well-known is Erin Morgenstern, author of best-selling and award-winning novel The Night Circus. With a debut that strong, my expectations (and those of the rest of the world) of course are pretty high. Her newest book The Starless Sea comes out in October of 2019, and is so far the only book this year for which I have a pre-order out on the hardcover. I’m trying not to “overhype” this in my own head, but in all honesty: I can’t wait to read this. Favorite book by this author: The Nightcircus Upcoming releases: The Starless Sea (October 5th, Harvil Secker) 7. Emily X.R. Pan Less well-known, but with an equally strong debut, we have Emily X.R. Pan, author of The Astonishing Color of After. This incredibly beautiful magical realism novel hit very close to home for me with its themes of depression and grief over the loss of a parent. A year after finishing it, this still remains a very special book, and all-time favorite to me. If you can describe grief in a way that hits me that hard, and got very close to making me cry, than you’ve got my complete faith in your extraordinary abilities as an author. Favorite book by this author: The Astonishing Color of After Upcoming releases: Little Brown Publishing has acquired the rights to a second standalone by this author. No further details have been announced yet. 8. Daisy Johnson Another favorite, just based on her debut novel. But what a debut novel that was. Everything Under made its way onto my favorite of 2018 list, for its stunning prose, its themes and symbolism, and simply how many much it manages to cover in just over 250 pages. This is as close to a perfect debut as you’re going to get. It had everything that needed to be there: nothing more, nothing less. I have nothing but respect for a 28-year old woman who manages to do that on her debut, and expect nothing but greatness of her in the future. Again: this is an author of which I would read a grocery-list, just to enjoy her prose. Favorite book by this author: Everything Under No upcoming releases announced 9. Anna-Marie McLemore Speaking of beautiful prose: Anna-Marie McLemore might as well take out a patent on lyrism. Her writing is some of the most lush and flowery I’ve ever read, and in the hands of any other author, or in any other genre, I’d probably dislike it. In Anna-Marie McLemore’s skillful hands, woven into whimsical and lush magical realism stories, it works like a charm. I always struggle during the first few pages to get a hang of her unique style, but McLemore always manages to cast her magic on me in the end. Favorite book by this author: When the Moon was Ours Upcoming releases: Dark and Deepest Red (January 14th 2020, Feiwel & Friends) 10. Lindsay Eagar Last but not least, we have the only middle grade author on this list. I hadn’t read any middlegrade since I passed the age of 12, until I picked up Lindsay Eagars The Hour of Bees in 2016, and had my eyes opened to what this genre can do. Eagars can pull younger readers in with elements of magic and whimsey, but underneath that, they cover deeper subjects like grief, family and growing up. Eagar is one of those authors that doesn’t underestimate the situations that young people can (and sometimes have to) understand and deal with. Her stories are approachable, helpful and meaningful, not just for middle-graders, but for anyone who remembers what the world felt like at that age. Favorite book by this author: The Hour of Bees Upcoming releases: Candlewick Press has acquired the rights to 2 upcoming books, scheduled for release in 2020 and 2021. I hope I helped put some of these people on your radar, and I’d love to hear if you’ve read any of their books and what you think of them. Let me know if you’d like me to add to this list in the future, or if you’d like to hear of more authors who’s name spark my interest when they appear in a new release-list. For now: I wish you all happy reading, and hope to see you in my next post.

Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism Published: Jo Fletcher Books, 2013 (Originally published 2009) My Rating: 3/5 stars “There is a language to dying. It creeps like a shadow alongside the passing years and the taste of it hides in the corners of our mouths. It finds us whether we are sick or healthy. It is a secret hushed thing that lives in the whisper of the nurses’ skirts as they rustle up and down our stairs. They’ve taught me to face the language one syllable at a time, slowing creating an unwilling meaning." The Language of Dying is one of those novels I feel a little bad about not liking more. It’s a novella that takes place over the span of a few hours, as a woman wakes by the bed of her dying father and muses over the time leading up to this moment. It’s quite a step away from Sarah Pinborough’s normal work in the thriller/mystery genre and just feels somewhat more personal to the author herself. I couldn’t tell you if this is autobiographical, but when an author writes such a personal novella outside of their usual brand, that is automatically where my mind goes. This makes me feel even worse for not particularly liking this novella. If you know me, you might know I have a special place in my heart for books that deal with grief, before, after, or surrounding the death of a loved one. Because of that, I read and have read a lot of those. Having so much material for comparison has made me (perhaps hyper-)critical of the entire genre, making it quite hard for a new book to blow me away. That was exactly the case here: The Language of Dying is a true and honest description of one woman’s experience, but it did nothing to differentiate itself from the other books on the topic. What I look for in books like this are (grossly simplified) 2 things: 1. A feeling of recognition: thinking, “yes, that was what it felt like to me”, or “I can see how it would feel like that”. The ability of an author to put into words a deeply personal experience you had. Maybe it was an abstract, undefinable feeling, that you only recognized when you read it on the page. Maybe it was something you were able to describe, but didn’t know other people felt too. The Language of Dying does deliver on this front. 2. This may sound a little vague, but: the feeling that you’ve gained something from revisiting that experience via the book you just read. That you’ve perhaps gained a new perspective, realized something new or even just felt a little more understood, or less alone than you did before. This is what lacked in The Language of Dying for me. Everything I read in here, I’ve read before in one way or another, so nothing was quite unique or new enough to bring that for me. The one aspect with which The Language of Dying tries to set itself apart from others is the use of a small element of magical realism. Potentially, this is something I could very much enjoy, but in this case, I didn’t feel it fit the story. Its appearance felt like an afterthought, not yet completely woven into the fabric of the story, and therefore fell a little flat for me. All in all: an okay read for me. I commend Sarah Pinborough for stepping outside her comfort zone with this title, and I do feel this is something that could potentially be very meaningful to some people. It unfortunately just didn’t happen to be for me. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Literary Fiction, Gothic Horror Published: Picador, June 2009 My Rating: 2/5 stars “ Please tell a story about a girl who gets away.” So... I’m not too sure how to rate this book... I can’t say I enjoyed it but to say it was a bad book would be equally as big a lie. This is probably not going to be a coherent review, but more “thoughts on paper”, so feel free to skip this one if you’re looking for a proper review. This was confusing, yet somehow entrancing, strange, yet somehow familiar and had little plot as far as I could descern. That all pales in comparison to my dominant feeling about this novel: White is for Witching freaked me right the hell out... To the point where I struggled a little to even finish it.’ What begins as the story of a haunted house, soon develops into the story of a haunted girl. A girl obsessed with grief, obsessed with her own body and its flaws, and wanting that body to become a ghost itself… Protagonist Miranda suffers from Pica, a rare eating disorder that leads to an uncontrolable compulsion to eat unedible objects, often combined with an aversion to eating actual food. I’m not personally familiar with this disorder: I’ve only seen it once in my years as a medical student and that alone was quite an impactful experience. I am however, from my personal enviroment, more familiar with other forms of eating disorders, and have to commend Helen Oyeyemi for the way she described this experience, which is part of why this freaked me out so much. Although I want to give credits to Oyeyemi for describing such an unconventional disorder in a way that still managed to strike a personal note with me, I also suspect that there may have been other motives at play. At times it felt to me like the author used picked this specific disorder for its creep-factor, with the purpose to make the reader uncomfortable. This in turn made me uncomfortable, as I don’t agree with the use of real mental illnesses to this effect. The subject matter isn’t the only unconventional aspect of White is for Witching: the style and layout themselves are often a bit “off” as well, only exaggeraing that feeling of unease in the reader. Personally, I don’t quite like when authors do this: I like my layouts plain and “readable”, but in this case I think it did match the story quite well. If you like the type of “stream of consciousness” novels, that don’t necessarily have a coherent plot, if you want an experience more than a story, or if you desperately want a modern novel in the vain of Shirley Jackson: this might be for you. If you think this all sounds a little to abstract and vague: skip it, for sure. If you or someone close to you currently struggles with an eating disorder, perhaps also give this one a pass. Again; even though this disease doesn’t affect me personally, the description of mental-illness and eating disorders in this novel freaked me out a bit. This was my first experience with Oyeyemi’s writingstyle, and I can’t quite decide if I’m more put-off, or intrigued, or equal parts of both. I’m at the very least curious to see how her style will fit in her other novels. I’m still very interested in Gingerbread and Boy, Snow, Bird and plan on picking them up in the near future. Perhaps that will help me make a little more sense of my thoughts on this novel as well. In the mean-time: feel free to let me know your thoughts. I’m curious to hear what others thought of this. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Thriller/Horror, Sci-Fi Published: Zaffre Publishing, June 2018 My rating: 4/5 stars Horror-thrillers are usually something a little out of my comfort zone, but if you’re going to pitch a book as “Indiana Jones meets the X-files” you can bet your bottoms I’m going to be all over that! Sprinkle in a dash of Buzzfeed Unsolved (a personal guilty pleasure of mine) and the result, indeed, is about as close as you can get to The Anomaly. We follow a filmcrew of 7 on their journey to find a long hidden cave that is rumored to exist in the Grand Canyon for their web-show “The Anomaly Files”. Crew leader and webhost Nolan hopes that finding proof of its existence will be the breakthrough the show needs to help elevate it out of the realm of fringe conspiracy, into real television. The crew gets more than they bargained for when they not only find the cave, but become trapped in its integrate network of tunnels and chambers, with possibly more than just the darkness to fear… I was honestly worried that we were going to go into campfire-story territory of “supernatural (preferably smiling) monster in cave hunts people and nothing gets explained”, and I’m happy to say that that was not what happened. The Anomaly was far more developed than that. This is the type of thriller in the vein of Blake Crouch, that will have you burning midnight oil in order to finish it, because you just can’t wait to find out what happens on the next page. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and genuinely rooted for and cared for the characters to survive. I was on the train reading it, and actually considered just getting off on a later stop, so I could finish my chapter, which for me, is the sure fire sign of a good thriller. Michael Rutger (pseudonym for Michael Marshall) is originally a screenwriter, and it shows, as the book plays out like a movie in your head whilst reading. It’s fast paced, and every scene matters to the story. Not to mention that if this ever gets made into a movie, I’ll be first in line at the cinema. My only point of critique would be the ending. Getting your characters into too deep of trouble risks you having to scramble for a rushed solution, and unfortunately, that happened a little here. It wasn’t bothersome enough to affect my enjoyment of the rest of the book, but a bit of a thorn in the paw of an otherwise lion of a book. What more can I say…? Fast-paced story, snarky characters, plottwists and suspense: great thriller! If you are a fan of Blake Crouch, this is for you. Also, if “Indiana Jones meets X-files” doesn’t sell you, I honestly don’t know what will… Find this book on Goodreads

After a Meh-March an Amazing-April was just what the doctor ordered, and sure hell it delivered with some great ones. I read 9 books in the month of April, of which only 3 got less than 4 stars. One of them made me feel like a teenager again, two of them took me by complete surprise and the last one got a second chance and made the best out of it… Without further ado, let’s get into the books. Books Read: 1. The Gilded Wolves – Roshani Chokshi Setting the bar extremely high from the start, my first read of the month was already a 5 star one. The Gilded Wolves is one of those novels that reminds me again why I still pick up YA-novel at age 22. It’s been compared to Six of Crows a lot, and although I was sure that this could only set me up for disappointment, the comparison held true for me. A fantastic heist-novel with a twist, with a diverse cast of characters that I came to absolutely love. Read my full review here. Rating: 5/5 stars 2. The Unfinished World and Other Stories – Amber Sparks The Unfinished World is a short story-collection that is often mentioned in the same breath as By Light We Knew Our Names by Anne Valente, one of my favorite collections of last year). Although I can see the comparison, I didn’t enjoy this collection as much ash Anne Valente’s work. There were one or two I really enjoyed, but as a whole, this collection and I just didn’t click. I wrote a short review on Goodreads that can be found here. Rating: 2/5 stars 3. Ghost wall – Sarah Moss Ghost wall is the newest release by UK author Sarah Moss, who wrote one of my all-time-favorite novels The Tidal Zone, so I had high expectations going into it. This was a very short, but very strong novel about a dysfunctional family, obsession and the destructive power of group-mentality, all set against the décor of an iron-age reenactment camp. I initially gave it 3.5 stars, but later bumped it up to a full 4 stars, as it’s the kind of book that stays with you for a while, and needs some “digesting-time”. Full review can be found here. Rating: 4/5 stars 4. The Language of Dying – Sarah Pinborough After Ghost Wall, the next shorter book I picked up was bit of a disappointment. The Language of Dying is a novella that takes place over the span of a few hours, as a woman wakes by the bed of her dying father and muses over the years, weeks and days leading up to this moment. If you’ve been here for a while you know I read a lot about grief and as such, I have become perhaps hypercritical of them. After having read so many great ones, The Language of Dying was a well written account of such hours, yet it didn’t quite set itself apart from other books on the topic. Full review can be found here Rating: 3/5 stars 5. City of Woven Streets – Emmi Itaränta The first major surprise of the month came in the form of City of Woven Streets by Emmi Itaränta. It’s a little known fantasy book by a Swedish author, that has received quite mixed reviews, but the premise sounded so intriguing to me that I really wanted to give this a try. Although I felt quite lost for the first ca 75 pages, once I got into the story I fell in love with the dreamlike quality and the fascinating world. It isn’t a perfect book, but I had an amazing experience with it. Full review to come Rating: 4.5/5 stars 6. Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories – Kelly Barnhill Another short story collection, this time by the author of the widely loved The Girl Who Drank the Moon, that I approached with high expectations based on reviews from other readers I trust. Although I liked this collection better than The Unfinished World, it still wasn’t quite a new favorite for me. Again, there were 3 stories I really enjoyed, and 5 that didn’t quite click with me. Full review can be found here Rating: 3.5/5 stars 7. Sight – Jessie Greengrass This book entered my radar on the recommendation of Jen Campbell, an author and booktuber I adore and trust completely on her recommendations. However, I also knew that this was one of the most polarizing novels of 2018, and as such I went in with caution, bordering on trepidation… I was (again) surprised in the best possible way. Having read it, I can understand how it's the kind of book that one either loves or hates: more inner monologue than coherent plot and often more musings than novel. I, however, am on the love—side. A stunning homage to mother-child-relationships that managed to move me, resonate with me and break my heart at times… Full review to come Rating: 5/5 stars 8. The Secret of Nightingale Wood – Lucy Strange The Secret of Nightingale Wood is a middlegrade story that blurs the line between reality and fantasy in the inner world of a young girl coping with recent tragedies in her family. If you know me, you know that these are my favorite types of middlegrade novels, as for some reason, they always seem to cover so much more depth than first meets the eye. This was no different. Covering themes of mental illness in the 20th century, grief and having to grow up too quickly, whilst simultaneously evoking vibes of classics like The Secret Garden and Anne of Greengables: this was a joy to read. Full review to come. Rating: 4.5/5 stars 9. Arcadia – Iain Pearce Last but not least in April, I finished Arcadia by Iain Pears. Honestly, I’m not sure how to describe this yet, other than “smart”, as that’s the main word that keeps popping into my head when I think about it. My brain needs a little time to process all that happened in this almost 700-page unit of a book, but I can already tell that this is the type of book I really want to talk to other people about. If you’ve read it, I’d love to know your opinion. Personally, I really struggled to get into it at first, but I did end up enjoying it in the end. Full review to come. Rating: 4/5 stars May TBR My May-TBR is a little more fixed than I’m used to, as I suddenly had a lot of library-reservations coming trough all at once. As such there are 6 books I have to give priority to in the month of May. Luckily there's quite a variety of different genres, so I can still pick and chose a little based on my reading mood. - The Silence of the Girls – Pat Barker - If we were Villains – M.L. Rio - White is for Witching – Helen Oyeyemi - When the Crawdad Sings – Delia Owens - The Comet Seekers - Helen Sedgwick -The Devouring Gray - Christine Lynn Herman - The Girl Aquarium - Jen Campbell You can of course follow my progress during the month on my Goodreads, or await next month wrap up. I wish you all a happy reading month, and hope to see you back soon!

Genre: Short Stories, Fantasy/Magical Realism Published: Algonquin Books, February 2018 My Rating: 3.5/5 stars "It is our flaws that make us beloved by heaven. It is our scars and handicaps and lack of symmetry that prove that we are-or once were-alive." Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories drew my attention with its stunning cover and the promise of whimsically dark stories, with more than just surface level themes. With 8 short stories and a novella, this was also a perfect introduction to Kelly Barnhill’s writing for me. Shortstory-collections are always a little difficult to review for me. I tend to judge the stories individually, but also try to say something about the overall feel and coherence of the collection. The latter was great in the case of Dreadfull Young Ladies. The collection has a very distinct, fairytale-esque quality to it, and is thematically and atmospherically coherent. The writing is quite simple, but the imagery Barnhill evokes with her writing is beautiful enough, that it doesn’t need anymore lyricism. The quote mentioned above being a perfect example of that. The stories themselves were a little mixed for me: some of them worked really well, others fell a little flat for me personally. My favorites were Open the Door and The Light Pools In, The Taxidermists Other Wife and The Unlicensed Magician. Below, you can find my rating per story, as well as a short description as written by the author. Mrs Sorensen and the Sasquatch: 2/5 stars When Mrs. Sorensen’s husband dies, she rekindles a long-dormant love with an unsuitable mate Open the Door and the Light Pools in: 4/5 stars a young man wrestles with grief and his sexuality in an exchange of letters with his faraway beloved. A Dead Boys Last Poem: 3/5 stars Dreadful Young Ladies: 3/5 stars about the strength and power—known and unknown—of the imagination The Taxidermists other Wife: 4/5 stars Elegy to Gabrielle: 3/5 stars Notes on the Untimely Death of Ronia Drake: 2/5 stars a witch is haunted by the deadly repercussions of a spell. The Insect and the Astronomer: 2/5 stars upends expectations about good and bad, knowledge and ignorance, love and longing. The Unlicenced Magician: 4/5 stars introduces the secret magical life of an invisible girl once left for dead—with thematic echoes of The Girl Who Drank The Moon. When tallied up they score 3.1 stars on average, which fits my feeling about the collection as a whole pretty well. Although not a bad rating at all, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed, as I was really hoping to love this. Possible factors that hindered my enjoyment were the fact that I haven’t had much time to read recently, and therefore may have been rushed a little whilst reading it. If I could give you one piece of advice before picking this up, it’s that this is a collection to savour, not to devour. Taking your time to let the stories sink in will probably really help get the most out of them. Find this book on Goodreads

Birds are chirping, flowers are blossoming, the sun is beginning to show itself more and more… Spring is in the air… Not that I’d know as I spend most of my time inside the hospital walls, whilst on my internal medicine rotation currently. That makes it not only hard to get into the joyful Easter-spirit, but also to post frequent and well-thought-out content on here. This tag is going to attempt to help me with both of these issues. Today I’ll be doing the Easter Book Tag, a quite underused tag, originally created by Rosie the Reader (Youtube Channel linked below). So grab your chocolate eggs and Easterbunny ears and let’s get into the questions. 1. Rabbits: a book you wish would multiply, aka a book you want a sequel to. There is one sequel that I (and about a million other booklovers out there) am most desperately anticipating, and it pains me that there is still no release date in sight. I’m talking, of cause, off The Doors of Stone, the third and final book in the King Killer Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. I don’t need to go on a tangent here, as most of you will already know what I’m going to say. Please Pat, just please… As for standalone novels that I wish would get a sequel: I wish Sixth of the Dusk, a Cosmere novella by Brandon Sanderson had a sequel/full series. I loved the world, the main character and his birds, and would have happily read another 600+ pages about them. 2. Egg: a book that surprised you. The Unseen World by Liz Moore: I expected to like it, but ended up loving it. Same goes for (most recently) The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi: really exceeded my expectations. 3. Hunt: a book that was hard for you to get your hands on. The first that comes to mind is my beautiful original edition of The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan. Being one of my favorite books of all time that has a very special meaning to me, I really wanted to own the beautiful first edition cover, instead of the much less pretty paperback I had. Considering the original cover has been out of print for a while, it took me quite some time to track down a second hand copy. I did succeed however, and it’s still one of my most cherished books. Secondly, I had a fairly hard time to get my hands on Lattitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup, as not only is it quite a niche book by an Indian author, it seemed impossible to get any seller to ship it to the Netherlands for me. However: perseverance pays off in the end, and although it got slightly banged up in the mail, a copy now proudly resides on my shelves. 4. Lambs: a childrensbook you still love. So many… I have said it before, and will say it again: I will probably “outgrow” YA before I ever outgrow middlegrade. Some of my favorites from my childhood that I still love include the His Dark Materials trilogy, Matilda, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter and my entire Paul Biegel (Dutch childrensbook author) collection that I read with my mother as a child. To this day, I still continue to find new favorites in the genre, even once I didn’t get to read as a child. 5. Spring: a book with a cover that makes you think of spring. There’s probably not going to be a lot of rhyme or reason to what makes a “spring-y” cover for me. Maybe a theme of plants and pastels, but other than that: just five random covers that remind me of spring. Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore, Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi, The Bigfoot Files by Lindsay Eagar and The Seas by Samantha Hunt (2018 Tinhouse Edition) 6. Rising from the dead: a book from a deceased author. I’m going to pick When Breath Becomes Air, a memoir by Paul Kalanithi for this question. In this incredible book, Kalanithi describes his life from the moment he entered medical school to become a neurosurgeon, to his diagnosis with terminal lungcancer at the age of 37. He didn’t get to finish his work before losing his life to the disease, yet his memoir isn’t any less impressive for it. It’s one of my all-time favorites, and a book I’d highly recommend to anyone in the medical field, or even outside it. 7. Baskets: a book that is in your amazon cart/wishlist right now. three books that are on my wish list right now are: When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore, The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. Fun fact: the boxed set of all the Harry Potter books has been in my amazon cart for almost 3 years now, without ever leaving it or being purchased. I never owned the books myself (always borrowed from the library), and although I dream of one day having enough shelf space to buy and display them all, I currently (in my studenthousing) just don’t… It’s still staying in the cart however, as a reminder of the wallcovering bookshelves I dream to one day have. 8. Candy: a book that is just sweet. I don’t read too many “sweet” books, if I’m honest. Most of the middlegrade novels I mentioned in question 4 could pass for this question as well. Both Matilda as well as the Ronia Robber’s Daughter are books that bring a fuzzy feeling to my heart, just by looking at them. I wish you all a very happy Easterweekend, hopefully with some nice spring weather! Read on, and until next time. Link to Rosie the Readers Channel Link to my Goodreads

Genre: Literary Fiction Published: Granta Books, September 2018 My Rating: 4/5 stars “I shivered. Of course, that was the whole point of the re-enactment, that we ourselves became the ghosts, learning to walk the land as they walked it two thousand years ago.” With Sarah Moss being the author of one of my all-time favorite novels The Tidal Zone, it’s no surprise that I was only a matter of time before I picked up her latest release Ghost Wall. This time, Moss focusses on the relationship between a father and a daughter, set against the background of a quite unusual anthropological experiment: two weeks of iron-age reenactment. Silvie’s father has an obsession with this time period, that exceeds the normal professional curiosity of an anthropologist. He idolizes the way of life, when “times were simpler” and his dominant view of masculinity was the norm. At first, Silvie and her mother reluctantly agree in the reenactment, but as the days go by, they begin to wonder how dad is willing to go with his obsession. Sarah Moss is at her best when writing family dynamics, and proves this again in this novel. With only a few scenes she paints a crystal clear picture of the characters, their relationships as a family, and the dynamics at bay, without ever saying a word too much and spelling out the obvious. She needs little set up to create an incredibly tense and uncomfortable situation, and the ending of this novel genuinely had me a little unnerved and on the edge of my seat. The darker themes are balanced out with beautiful prose, and some very interesting observations, that are as lyrical and sharp as Moss’s other works. Despite all the above mentioned good, I was left with a feeling of wanting more after finishing it. With its 152 pages, Ghost Wall inhabits that shadowy area of not quite being a short story, but not quite a full length novel either. Although the story stands on its own just fine, I feel like there was more potentially to it than was included in the novel. With its current length, some things simply went a little too quickly and ended a little too abruptly for my taste. I would have happily read another 100 pages, if that meant that more of that potential could be released. I’m not fully committed to my rating yet, as Ghost Wall seems to be the type of book with a lasting aftertaste, and I feel myself still processing and digesting it even after putting it down. I might get even more out of it once it sits with me for a while. I’ll update if my opinion changes, or if I feel like I want to add to this review. Edit: I was correct: this book has been in my mind a lot over the past few days and weeks, in the best way possible. This for sure is the type of book that "ghosts" in the back of your mind for a while and keeps you revisiting it long after you finish it. I have since upped my rating on Goodreads to a full 4-stars, and will do so on here as well. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Fantasy, YA Published: Wednesday Books, January 2019 My Rating: 5/5 stars “That’s it, I’m done with YA fantasy.” - sentence uttered by me, many times over the last few years. I just can’t take it anymore. No other genre can hold a candle to the number of disappointments YA has brought me. The awesome premises, bogged down by underdeveloped characters, predictable plots and angsty teenage romance… Why do I even keep trying?!? Then, every once in a while, one of those rare gems comes around, that restores my faith in the entire genre. Tiny gold nuggets that make sifting thought the mud all worthwhile. I think of Six of Crows or Strange the Dreamer, and can now add one more novel to that list: The Gilded Wolves. The Gilded Wolves is set against the dazzling background of 19th century Paris and follows, what is essentially a heist of an ancient forged artifact of great significance. A seemingly mismatched group of friends and total strangers, each with their own specialty must learn work together to accomplish this feat. - Severain, the protective leader of the group and heir to a powerful house of which the forged artifact in question was stolen. - Laila, the charismatic Indian girl with a troubled past, who has the ability to “read” objects by touch, and tell their history by doing so. Also bakes a mean batch of cookies. - Tristan, absolute sweetheart botanist who has a gift for plants and nature and is obsessed with his pet-tarantula. (view spoiler). - Zofia, the engineer, who is probably somewhere on the autism-spectrum, based on her behavior. She loves math, chemistry and has the rare gift of “mind-forging”. She is never “labeled” as autistic in the novel, which I really appreciated: the characters just accept her for who she is, without making a big deal out of it. She is also wickedly funny at times. - Enrique, the biracial historian with a deep interest for especially the cultural side of his profession. He can be a little shy, and probably has the least distinct personality of the group, but brings a lot of depth to the story in his quietness. - And Hypnos, heir to an aristocrat, queer and probably the biggest drama-queen in history. Although this is a very “dangerous” character to write (for risk of being “the-token-gay-comical-relief”), Chokshi just managed to pull it off perfectly. Hypnos felt well-developed and genuinely funny, and ended up being one of my favorite characters in the end. Characters are a very important part of a novel for me, and more often than not the difference between a favorite or an “okay” read. Reading about the cast of The Gilded Wolves felt like traveling with friends to me, a feeling I honestly haven’t had with any YA ever since finishing Six of Crows. Chokshi is an artist with words, and with her beautiful prose, she brings to life not only the characters, but also the lush world she built. Where Ketterdam was bleak and dark, the world of The Gilded Wolves is vibrant and full of life, and it’s a joy to immerse yourself in it for hours on end. The magic system, based on forging is best left explored for yourself, but suffice to say: color me intrigued. I loved what we learned in this novel and really hope we expand further on it in the next. In the end, The Gilded Wolves is not a perfect book (because, guess what: I don’t believe those exist), but came damn close to a perfect reading experience for me personally. Highly, highly recommend, not just for fans of YA, but also for those of you who (like me) at times lose faith in the genre: this might just bring it back! Find this book on Goodreads

Today's post is a little different from what I usually write, as it focusses not on what is inside a book, but on what’s on the outside: coverdesign. We have all heard the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”, and because of that, there almost seems to be a taboo on appreciating coverart. In reality, we all judge books by there covers, whether we are aware of it or not. When browsing the shelves in your library or bookstore, what is it that makes you pick up one book to read the backflap, but not the other. Most likely, it’s a combination of cover and title. A good coverdesign therefore draws in your eye, but also reflects the atmosphere or content of the book. Consider this a homage to some of the books that got that completely right. The Mistborn Series, UK editions Coverart by Sam Green, for Orion Books UK The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan Coverillustration by Filicita Sala for Harvill Secker Publishing The Nevernight Chronicles, UK editions Coverart by Kerby Rosanes, Design by Micaela Alcaino, for Harper Collins UK The Storm Crow - Kalyn Josephson Coverart by Tran Nguyen, for Source Books Fire, USA Eleanor - Jason Gurley Cover by Mike Topping and Eva Creel, for Harper Collins Publishing Wild Beauty by Anna Marie McLemora Coverdesign by Danielle Mazzella di Bosco and Gary Spector, for Feiwel and Friends Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi Cover by Rich Deas, for Pan MacMillan Sadie by Courtney Summers Cover illustration by Agata Wierzbicka, Cover design by Kerri Resnick for Wednesday Books Everything Under - Daisy Johnson Coverart by Kustaa Saksi, Coverdesign by Suzanne Dean for Jonathan Cape UK The Ocean at the End of the Lane- Neil Gaiman Christmas Edition by Headline Publishing Artist unknown We, The Drowned by Carsten Jensen Coverdesign by Suzanne Dean for Vintage Books THe Bone Houses - Emily Lloyd-Jones Little Brown Publishing Whilst doing my research for this post, I noticed one name coming up many times, as I seem to have a favorite cover-designer. David Mann, working for Bloomsbury UK does some of the best cover-design work, in my opinion. He has a recognizable style that always catches my eye, yet also manages to reflect the atmosphere of the novel beautifully. Following are a few examples of this, and linked below is his website, in case you’d like to admire more of his work. Special credits also go to the designers at Harper Collins UK for being frequently featured here. Designs by David Mann

Despite having a busy month, I was on an absolute roll reading-wise. Thanks to a few audiobooks, I mentioned to somehow finish 10 books this month, which is honestly kind of ridiculous at this point. We have a lot of books to get to, so without further ado: let’s get into the wrap up. Books Read: 1. The Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker I was on a “slow-burn-post apocalyptic-kick” (think Station Eleven) when I picked this one up. The world as we know it is changing as result of a natural disaster called the “The Slowing”, in which the rotation of the earth is gradually slowing down. Days and nights grow longer, and as a result nature and life on earth itself seems to slow down with it. As fascinating and unique that concept sounded, so mediocre was the execution to me. The Age of Miracles was an enjoyable read, but didn’t quite stand out to the point where I think I’ll still think of it years down the line. Full review can be found here. Rating: 2.5/5 stars 2. The Book of M – Peng Shepherd Another slow-burn-post-apocalyptic-novel, yet this time it had everything I was hoping for. An amazing (and somewhat terrifying) concept and worldbuilding, suspense and an emotional punch that will stay with me for quite some time. My full review can be found here, but suffice to say, this was one of my favorite reads of the year so far. Highly recommend it! Rating: 5/5 stars 3. Halibut on the Moon – David Vann Despite having 6 library books that were screaming to be read, I had to drop everything the moment Halibut on the Moon appeared in stores. I have been a big David Vann fan since I read 4 of his previous books over the last 1.5 years and had been highly anticipating his newest release for quite a while. David Vann writes harrowing, darkly melancholic and raw novels that often involve dark topics like mental illness, abuse and suicide. Halibut on the Moon is no different, telling the story of man suffering from severe manic depression on a spiral that seems destined for self-destruction. I have to be honest and say that I struggled at times reading this. Having suffered a form of depression myself (non-manic), it hit close to home at times, to the point where I wanted to put it down and run from it in disgust at times. However, this is only a testament to how amazingly well written this novel is and I can’t give it anything other than five stars. I have a lot to say about it, and my full review can be found here. Note: it’s a novel where the state of mind of the reader is very important: if you are suffering from depression at the moment, I don’t recommend it just yet, as it’s very very bleak. Wait for a time when you feel better and are ready to face the dark place you were in. Trust me: that time will come! Hang in there. Rating: 5/5 stars 4. An Unkindness of Magicians – Kat Howard I described An Unkindness of Magicians in my review as “urban fantasy giving me vibes of the Tri-wizard tournament from Harry Potter on steroid” and I still stand by that description. Although it didn’t quite meet the high expectations I had of it, I still very much enjoyed this action-packed, albeit fairly middle-of-the-road YA-fantasy. My full review can be found here. Rating: 3/5 stars 5. Land Mammals and Sea Creatures – Jen Neale This is where my month got a little disappointing… When I first came across Land Mammals and Sea Creatures, I was pretty sure I was going to love it. Magical realism with a seaside setting focused on a father and daughter dealing with issues of grief, PTSD and finding back their joy in life. The premise sounded right up my alley and despite the lukewarm reviews it got, I really hoped I would be the outlier who would absolutely love it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. There were some individual scenes that might have been 5-stars on their own, but they were to fragmented throughout the novel to make a coherent whole. That, combined with some other issues I had with the story made for one of my biggest disappointments of the year so far. My full review can be found here. Rating: 2/5 stars 6. Every Heart a Doorway – Seanan McGuire Disappointment continued with another 5-star prediction that didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. I don’t think Every Heart a Doorway needs much introduction as it’s one of the most read and well-loved books online. Despite clearly good intentions and a core that could have made for something I would have loved, I just had too many issues with this novella. My full review can be found here. Rating: 2/5 stars 7. Down among the Sticks and Bones – Seanan McGuire Despite not really loving Every Heart a Doorway, I had already picked the sequal/prequel Down Among the Sticks and Bones up from the library, so I figured I might as well read them both back to back. Down Among the Sticks and Bones was in every way a more temperate experience for me: there was less that I explicitly loved, but there were also significantly less problems with it. After having read both, I have decided however, that I have no interest in continuing this series. Full review can be found here Rating: 2.5/5 stars 8. Everything Happens for a Reason and Other lies I’ve loved – Kate Bowler Everything Happens for a Reason and Other lies I’ve loved was on my December TBR as one of my “annual cancer-memoirs”, written by a divinity professor whom beliefs in a benevolent God are challenged as she herself is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. She describes her experiences and internal struggle with great detail and honesty, in this openhearted memoir. As is often the case, I find it easier to review highly personal works such as memoirs and poetry in words, than I do in a quantitate star rating. I realize this is a very niche topic, but if you are interested in it, I’d rather you read my thoughts in my review, than judge it on a number alone. Rating: no star rating 9. The Anomaly – Michael Rutger The Anomaly is a horror/thriller/adventure and as such, quite far out of my usual comfort zone as far as genres go. Regardless: this was a very pleasant surprise. Picture Indiana Jones meets Buzzfeed Unsolved (two of my personal guilty pleasures), and sprinkle in a dash of X-files and the result would be close to The Anomaly. It’s suspenseful and as soon as the action kicks off, it was very hard to put down. If that description sounds good to you, The Anomaly might be just was the doctor ordered. Full review to come. Rating: 4/5 stars 10. Sadie – Courtney Summers Sadie was one of the most hyped books of the second half of 2018, and to its credit, still managed to surprise me. A very “mature”(for lack of a better word) and tragic YA novel, that doesn’t underestimate its young readers’ ability to understand and relate to very hard topics. Due to its unique format, being partially told in the form of a podcast, it’s almost made to be listened to on audiobook, which I highly recommend. Sadie isn’t your typical innocent and light YA, but for sure on of the more interesting ones I’ve read recently. Full review linked here Rating: 4/5 stars April TBR In April I will again be in residency (Internal medicine), and therefore have less free time on my hands. For this reason, I’m keeping my TBR short this month, and limiting it to the library books I currently have at home. - The Gilded Wolves – Roshani Chokshi One of my most anticipated books of 2019 has finally arrived at my library and I can’t wait to dig in. Fantasy in a nineteenth century setting, secret societies, a hidden artifact, a rag-tag crew to hunt it down and some major Six of Crows vibes. Sign me up please! - Arcadia – Iain Pears Ever since I first heard about Arcadia on Jen Campbells channel, I’ve been wanting to pick this up, and I hope that April is finally the time for that. I don’t know too much, apart from this being a kind of philosophical portal fantasy novel, but I honestly don’t need to know much more at this point. If Jen compares something to her love for His Dark Materials, you can bet I want to see what’s up here. - The Fifth Season – N.K. Jemisin I’ve already read The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin once last year, and didn’t quite enjoy my time with it. Ever since however, I’ve felt like I didn’t quite do it justice with my first attempt (distracted due to personal reasons, and rushing to finish it), and I’ve been wanting to give it a second try. As I struggled to keep up with the plot and different POV’s last time, I’ve decided to read it in Dutch (my native language) this time, in order to potentially make it easier for me to enjoy the story, and not having to put extra energy into reading in a foreign language. I have no idea if this’ll work, but I plan on giving it a try anyway. You can of course follow my progress during the month on my Goodreads, or await next month wrap up. I wish you all a happy reading month, and hope to see you back soon!

Genre: YA contemporary/mystery Published: Wednesday Books & MacMillan Audio, September 2018 My Rating: 4/5 stars "When Sadie lost Mattie, it drove her to leave her home in Cold Creek, to take on the loneliness and pain of all those miles, just to find her little sister's murderer and make the world right again, even, possibly, at the expense of herself." This is the story of a family shattered by tragedy, told by a girl without a voice, in a community that can’t take another dead girl anymore… Radiohost West McRay had no idea of the depth of the story he was getting into when he first began researching a local missing girl named Sadie. Raised an impoverished, troubled family, all Sadie ever cared about was protecting her little sister Mattie from the dark things in life, and when Mattie tragically dies Sadie snaps. She sets off on a desperate journey of revenge to find the man she holds responsible, leaving nothing behind but an empty car and some meager clues to follow. We alternate between Sadie’s own perspective and West’s podcast in which he tries to give Sadie the one thing she never had in life: a voice to be heard. Sadie is a difficult novel to read. Although it’s classified in the YA-genre, it deals with some very mature topics which, in my opinion, is its biggest strength. One of my biggest pet-peeves in YA is that it gravely underestimates the subjects that teenagers and young adults are realistically able (and often forced) to deal with. They will tell of puppy-dog love and “boy-trouble” and shy away from anything more complex than that, as “young people don’t understand or have to deal with that yet”. In fact, they/we often do, and it’s always great to me to see a YA-novel recognize that. It’s a brave choice by the author and one that I really appreciate. Another brave choice was the unique format of telling half the novel in “podcast form”. Before picking it up, I honestly had no idea what to expect from this, but I have to say it really worked. It also makes this the perfect novel to listen to on audio, which I did and would strongly recommend. Two points of critique brought my rating down a little though; First the characters felt a little one-dimensional to me. This could possibly be due to us seeing all of them (either directly or indirectly) from Sadie’s point of view, but that didn’t take away from the fact that some felt underdeveloped. Secondly, despite only being 300 pages long I think the novel could have benefitted from some editing down. At times it felt a little like this was a novella that had been “padded up” to be a full length novel. I would have preferred it to be either edited down a little, or having used the remaining space to flesh out the characters a little more. I have seen many people name the ending as their one point of critique, but I have to say that I felt the opposite. I really “liked” the ending (although that might not be the proper word to use). It felt realistic and fitting to me, and I don’t think I would have found it fitting if it had been any different. Sadie is far from your “typical innocent YA novel” and I have to say that it’s a very welcome change of pace. I was very nervous as the hype was insane when it first got out, but I do think it deserved at least a large part of it. If you plan on picking this one up, I highly recommend the audiobook, as I do think it added to the experience for me. Find this Book on Goodreads

Genre: Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Published: William Morrow, June 2018 My rating: 5/5 stars If only we were elephants. Then we could help each other…” Fantasy/Sci Fi- apocalyptic novels have always done their best to terrify us with wild concepts of rising dead, killer robots and monstrous mutants walking the earth. Yet it’s often the simplest and most realistic of concepts that manage to get under my skin the most. Have you ever realized how wonderfully valuable our ability to remember is? Or how fragile and fallible it could be? What would happen if the entire population, and even the physical world around you suddenly lost that ability? Peng Shepard takes that concept, and cranks it up to eleven in one of the best books I’ve read this year. I usually give a short synopsis on what the books about here, but in this case I’m going to skip over that. Not only does the cover text do a great job on its own, but even if you go in fairly blind like I did, the first chapter will sweep you up and have you excited to find out for yourself. Peng Shepherd does an amazing job of building a world and (for lack of a better word:) “magic system” revolving around memories, elephants and shadows that works better than it has any business to, being how bizarre it sounds when I put it down like this. The entire thing is so well thought out, and makes so much “sense” in the context of the world that my suspension of disbelief was almost complete. When I was reading, for all I knew this was already happening on the other side of the world. It just hadn’t reached me yet. We see the story through the eyes of 4 characters: - Orlando (Ory) Zhang, a devoted husband on a journey to find his wife who has recently lost her shadow. - Max, Ory’s wife, whose side of the story we hear through tape recordings she uses as a kind of dairy, to keep her from forgetting. - Mahnaz Ahmadi, stuck in Boston after the events that transpired, far away from her family in Iran. - The Amnesiac, a man who lost his memory before due to brain trauma, and offers a unique perspective on memory and memory loss, as he meets with “patient zero of the forgetting”. All of their perspectives have their own distinct voices, and I enjoyed all of them. I have to say I enjoyed Ory’s perspective the least, which is a shame as he narrates the majority of the novel. He seemed a little single-minded and flat in his character: his only goal being to find his wife, no matter the cost. As this was the only complaint I had with the novel as a whole, I can easily forgive it though. The Book of M was all in all, one of (if not my nr. 1) favorite book of 2019 so far. I was conflicted between wanting to speed up my reading to find out how this would end, and wanting to slow down, just to be able to savour it longer. It reminded me a lot of Station Eleven, one of my all-time favorite novels, in that sense without being too similar. It’s the type of slow-paced postapocalyptic, that I just gobble up, so if you (like me) enjoy that: this is a must read! Highly recommend! Note on the Audiobook: I started this novel on audio, but switched to the physical copy about 20% in, due to a problem I had with the narration-speed. The novel is narrated by two voice actors: a male that narrates Ory’s and The Amnesiac’s parts, and a female who narrates the perspectives of Max and Mahnaz. Although this was great in concept, I had a problem with the huge difference in speaking pace between the two. The male voice actor spoke painfully slow for my liking, to the point where I had to put the narration on 1.8 to 2x the speed to get a tolerable speed. The female however (especially as Max) speaks fairly fast, leaving me to have to switch the speed of the audiobook after every chapter. It’s a minor complaint, but possible helpful for those audiobook fans out there. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Non-fiction/Biography, Cancer memoirs Published: Random House, February 2018 No Star-rating given “God, I am walking to the edge of a cliff. Build me a bridge. I need to get to the other side.” Oh man... I don't know how to rate this just yet. Everything Happens for a Reason is Kate Bowlers memoirs of her experiences after being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. As a divinity professor, she has a difficult time integrating this personal tragedy into the narrative of her life. How can a benevolent God exist, in the face of all the injustice and suffering in the world? This book describes, in a very honest way, her search for the answer to that question, as well as her experiences with doctors, relatives and her own thoughts whilst on her sickbed. Having been on the emotional rollercoaster of this disease myself more than once (myself as well as close familymembers), I know the absolute chaos that it entails. The cycle of “DABDA” is a myth, and the reality looks more like a spiders web: circling and crisscrossing from one stage to the other without any rhyme of reason. Funnily enough, most cancer memoirs I’ve read do carry a kind of “dominant” emotional stage over them (likely the dominant emotional state the author was in at the time of writing). For this books, that emotion seemed to be anger. There’s a lot of anger in here: anger at God, anger at medical professionals, anger at her own faith and even anger at relatives who say dumb things… And I get it… All of what Kate Bowler says is true and honest. All of what she says has probably at some point been felt by someone going through a similar situation. There is also a lot of backtracking, however, where it seems like she is going to make a conclusive (sometimes controversial) statement, but doesn’t quite go through with it in the end. To me, this book feels like a women who, herself, is still trying to make sense of everything along the way. I know that journey, as most of us do, and honestly at this point in life I couldn’t write anything other than that. The result, however, is the aforementioned backtracking and the lack of a final take-home-message, that will bother some readers. It is an honest and heartfelt biography by a brave woman that will resonate with me for a while to come. Is it the most complete, rounded and well written work in its genre, though…? For me, no. It really depends on what you are looking for, and (in case you are going through/went through something similar) the state of mind you’re in. I’m happy I read it, although I will refrain from putting a star-rating on it for now. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: (YA) fantasy Published: Tor, June 2017 My rating: 2.5/5 stars “Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world.” Despite my disappointment in Every Heart a Doorway, I had already picked up both from the library at the same time and figured I might as well give it a try anyway. The experience was similar, although my mixed feelings were less extreme. In many ways I liked this novella a little better, although it is still plagued by many of the same issues that I had with the first one. My main complaint with both of them boils down to a case of “great intention, mediocre execution”. In this prequel to we follow the twins Jack and Jill, as we learn how they found their way to their hidden world, called The Moors: a dark and wonderful place inhabited by vampires, werewolves and twisted sciences. The first quarter of the story takes place in the real world and describes the way Jack an Jill were raised into different genderroles by their parents. Many interesting and true points are made here, yet it quickly felt like the author was lecturing the reader about bad parenting-skills. Once the twins enter their world, the plot is interesting enough, although it’s a shame that Every Heart a Doorway has already spoiled most of the ending. Although it is technically possible to read Down Among the Sticks and Bones first, I don’t think that would solve the issue, as it would spoil you for Every Heart a Doorway just as much. You can’t really win in this scenario, which I find an odd choice on the authors part. Other than those points, my critique is identical to that of Every Heart a Doorway, which I won’t repeat in depth. If you are interested, you can find the review here. The cliff-notes are: expositional writing, rushing to fit a lot in a short book, stereotypical characters, and shoehorned and forced diversity. In the end, this series clearly isn’t for me, and I won’t be picking up book 3 and 4, no matter how quickly I might be able to read them. I’m glad it’s enjoyed by so many others though. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: (YA) fantasy Published: Tor Publishing, April 2016 My Rating: 2/5 stars "She was a story, not an epilogue" One of the worst cases of conflicted emotions I’ve had in a long time.. This was a novel of extremes for me: on one page I was loving it, yet the next I was actively disliking and resenting it, which doesn’t happen to me that often and is a clear sign something isn’t right. Mandatory disclaimer: this is going to be a long one as I have many thoughts. Also, as this is a very beloved book and my opinion is going to be an unpopular one: my opinions are just opinions. I’m very happy that many people have found so much good in this novel, but I unfortunately had a different experience with it. Every Heart a Doorway is set in Mrs Eleanor West’s home for Wayward Children, a boarding school for teenagers who have traveled through portals to magical lands. Each of them, for one reason or another, had to return to reality, and now struggles to fit in again. In their own fantasy-worlds they could be their true selves, but Reality unfortunately isn’t so forgiving towards people that are “different”. The plot follows Nancy, the newest arrival at the Mrs West’s Home for Wayward Children, on a twofold quest: get to the bottom of the violent tragedies that are taking place between their walls, and (perhaps) more importantly: find her way home. The Good I have to start off on a high note: the premise and worldbuilding of are quite brilliant. Many of us, including myself, will experience a feeling of being “different” at some point in their lives. Of feeling lonely and out of place… Of being homesick for a place you can’t return to. Every Heart a Doorway does, at times, a brilliant job of putting that feeling into words. Those moments of melancholy and longing for your own world (childhood) are where this novella shines and had the potential of being a new favorite for me. I also loved the world that’s being created: the different worlds that each child has traveled to, to fit their needs. The distinctions between high-logic, high-whimsy, wicked, etc. and the way some portals opened once and never again felt original, yet very intuitive. Honestly, I would have read 170 pages just about the two points mentioned above, and would have likely given it 5 stars. Unfortunately, it isn’t 170 pages of this. The Bad About half way through, the secondary “mystery” storyline is introduced, and the novella went downhill from there. You know that feeling of: “oh-shit-there’s-so-much-mystery-to-solve-but-only-50-pages-left”...? yeah… That’s what I felt from this point on. 170 pages ultimately was too short to wrap up both of these storylines in a satisfying way, leading to a very rushed and exposition-heavy conclusion. Expositional writing in general runs ramped throughout: characters are constantly explaining everything to each other and the reader, including explaining things to each other that both parties should already know, which lead to stiff and unrealistic feeling conversations. In the end I almost wished McGuire had left the mystery storyline out entirely, and had focused the pagetime on the characters and their respective worlds. The Ugly Speaking of the characters: this is where my true problem with this novella lies. Every Heart a Doorway has been praised into oblivion for it’s diverse cast and great representation of minorities, so my expectations were pretty high. I like to see different types of people represented in my fiction as much as anyone else, but this to me was the perfect example of everything that can go wrong following the modern cry for more diversity in writing. The cast of this book can be best described as: every single token-[insert minority of your choice here] character, written in the most clichéd and flat way possible, combined. This extends to both their characters, as well as their worlds and honestly does more to further some prejudices than it does to counter them. Some examples: - Our main character Nancy is asexual. She is also pretty much just dead inside, and her world reflects this by being a lifeless underworld filled with dead, cold statues of people, lacking any joy or bounce. To present a sexuality that is plagued by a false prejudice of being frigid and “dead inside” in this way is just about the worst thing you can do. - Sumi is the only Asian character in the book. Guess what: she’s a cute and quirky (literal) manic-pixie-dream-girl, with her only character-trait being “quirk”. - Final nail in the coffin: there’s a latino/Mexican character who goes to a world of… Dia de Los Muertos. Dancing colorful skeletons and all… I wish I was making this up… To add insult to injury: all characters make a point of stating the exact way in which they are different by rattling off the exact definition of their sexualities/identities etc., as if they were giving an educational speech. Never have I ever had a conversation about sexuality that went like this. Diversity is not about pigeon-holing people into boxes for you to check in: people are more than sexualities/nationalities/etc. I want to see people leading diverse lives in fiction, as people do in real life(!!), not having to settle for a blank slate with a label printed on them. I can’t believe it’s 2019 and we’re still having this issue! This review got more ranty than I was expecting, yet I really wanted to put my thoughts onto paper. Please, again: these are just my opinions. I feel very strongly about the topic of diversity in fiction and I really, really want to see it done right. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Literary fiction Publised: ECW Press, May 2018 My rating: 2/5 stars “Selfdestruction can be a lot of things. Sad, devastating, quiet, glorious. Sweet relief. Comfort.” I should have been a little more prepared for this, based on reviews by other readers I trust, but this nonetheless was my biggest disappointment of the year so far. Combining magical realism, grief and a seaside setting, this hád to be a new favorite, right? Unfortunately, despite having all the potential to be (both in ways of the premise as well as the writing) the novel as a whole felt a little too disjointed to work for me. We start off with a powerful scene: whilst on a boating trip a father and daughter witness a blue whale beach itself intentionally on the shores of their hometown. The story continues from the perspective of three witnesses of the event: father Marty, a war veteran suffering from depression and PTSD. Julie, his loving daughter trying her best to help her father in every way she can. And Jennie Lee Lewis (JLL), an eccentric musician impersonator who mysteriously arrived that day in town, hellbent on stirring the pot in their normally peaceful village. What follows is a plethora of equally beautifully set- and written scenes, with equally powerful imagery, that ultimately lack the required cohesion to form a plot. I can’t express how much of a shame this was, as many of the chapters on their own were very powerful. Jen Neale clearly is a very talented author with a good eye for setting a scene and a great feeling for language. What was missing for me however, was an equally powerful main plot to serve as the backbone of the novel, from which the other scenes could branch. Because this was lacking for me, I kept feeling I might have enjoyed this novel more had it been a collection of short stories, instead of a novel. My second problem lies with the characters: I really don’t think they were as developed as they should have been. Marty by far is the best and most interesting: I think his struggle with PTSD was believable. The scenes where he is alone with just his dog and his thoughts were some of my favorite. My problem lies with Julie and JLL, who both try to help Marty, albeit in very different ways. Julie was okay for a side character: a little “vanilla” with the occasional cynical joke. JLL however, acts as the “antagonist” to Julie and is pretty much just despicable. I think the author was trying to portray her as a type of nihilistic liberal, who mostly just wants to have fun before things come to an end, but it ends up coming out as selfish destructiveness without any redeeming quality. I disliked the way she was written more so than I did her character in itself, which is never a good sign. The topic of suicide is woven clearly throughout this novels every page, to varying degrees of success. There are passages that really hit home for me, yet others (mostly from the mouth of JLL) just grossly oversimplify things and miss the mark completely. It is possible that this was the authors intent, showing her own opinion towards JLL’s “nihilistic destructiveness”, but even if that’s the case I don’t agree with how it was handled. JLL’s behavior is a not uncommon coping mechanism in people after tragedy, and deserved a better portrayal than this. Land Mammals and Sea Creatures is a book with a lot of potential, that clearly got me thinking about it a lot, but unfortunately wasn’t all I wanted it to be. Despite the disappointment I will keep Jen Neale on my radar for a while, as all the signs of a very talented author are there and I really want to see what she comes out with next. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Literary Fiction Published: Michael Joseph, February 2019 My rating: 4.5/5 stars Iceland, 1686. Rosa, a village girl from an impoverished family, is send off into a marriage of financial convenience, in order to keep her secure funds for her sick mother to survive the harsh winter. Rosa’s new found life does not come easy however. The small and isolated community of her new home is distrustful and unwelcoming to strangers. Rumors of witchcraft and misdeeds are mumbled around town, seemingly having Rosa’s new husband Jón at the center of them. What is Jón hiding? What’s in the attic that is so private Rosa is never allowed up there? And most importantly: what happened to Jón’s previous wife Anna, that nobody seems to dare to speak of. I picked up The Glass Woman completely on a whim (not in the least part because the stunning cover drew my eye), but was captivated by the story as soon as I read the first chapter. Darkly atmospheric, suspenseful and quite emotional in the end: this was everything I could have asked for at the moment. Caroline Lea’s beautiful writing does an amazing job of creating an eerie atmosphere of isolation, unwelcomeness and suspicion that permeates the entire story. Lea’s use of islandic words and knowledge of the daily life at the time add to the immersion and are a testament to the authors research on the subject. Atmosphere and suspense alone account for about 3.5 to 4 out of the 4.5 stars I just gave this novel. Dumbly enough, as much as I enjoy and value that quality in books, I suck at describing it in a review, especially to someone who hasn’t read the novel yet. My best shot is: if you enjoyed (the atmosphere and feeling of) Burial Rituals or Rebecca, this might be for you. Apart from the mystery and atmosphere, my favorite thing about The Glass Woman was the character of Rosa. She starts off as a scared and fragile little girl but really grows into newfound strength along the way. The same goes for the reluctant relationship between her and Jon, which grows stronger in a way, albeit not the way they anticipated. Saying too much more about the characters or plot might spoil things that are best discovered on your own. I recommend you pick it up and do just that. A very beautiful novel (inside and out), and extremely under-read and underrated at the moment. Highly recommend. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Literary Fiction Published: Grove Press, March 2019 My Rating: 5/5 stars Halibut on the Moon was among my most anticipated novels for 2019, even before I had read the synopsis. Ever since reading Legend of a Suicide, Aquarium and most recently Caribou Island, my respect for David Vann as an author has grown fast to the point where I will now read anything he publishes. Halibut on the Moon is Vann’s second novel about his father. Despite never specifically stating so, the parallels (even down to the names) are unmistakable. This makes this novel even more difficult for me to review, as it feels like such a personal piece of art. If you only want the cliff-notes of my opinion, then here they are: I think it’s a masterfully written novel, that is far from “fun” to read, but deserves all the stars for how important it is. It has Vanns signature all over it: beautifully written, dark, bleak and true. It sunk its talons into me and seeped into my soul. Jim is a recently divorced man, suffering from severe manic depression. His condition has forced him to temporarily live in the care of his older brother in California, whilst waiting out the deepest part depression. “Only two weeks before the meds start working” his psychiatrist has told him. But two more weeks of the hell Jim’s living seems like an insurmountable task. Being swept between the delusional highs and deepest lows of his mind, he is led on the path to the one solution that seems logical to him. Writing about depression is something too many authors attempt and too little succeed to do well. David Vann is one of the few that does it more than well. Having experienced severe depression myself, reading Vanns work is scarily relatable to my experiences from that period of my life, and I can’t stress enough how impressive that is. Depression is a period of my life that I (and many with me) struggle to put into words in our own minds, let alone convey the experience to others. It’s a bit like explaining to a living person what it feels like to be a ghost. If an author can do that, they can do pretty much anything. The grave contrast of the depression to Jim’s manic phases (which I have luckily never experienced so I can’t speak to the accuracy, but I trust Vann completely) only drive home the chaotic and taunting nature of this disease. Despite not understanding and sometimes even despising his manic actions, I couldn’t help but deeply feel for Jim’s struggles, leaving the ending to feel inevitable, yet deeply tragic. Halibut on the Moon is a masterful journey through the darkest corners the mind can roam to, yet simultaneously feels like a heartfelt homage from a son trying to understand his father. A novel that resonates empathy and respect, but not glorification of mental illness. It's not an easy novel to read: it's bleak, and at times feels "empty", and like it's going nowhere, but in the end, so too feels the condition it descibes. This is one that will stay with me for a long time to come… Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Fantasy Published: Saga Press, September 2017 My Rating: 3/5 stars “Magic, at its heart, starts with sacrifice. You have to give up something to get something, and because magic is big, with all that it allows you access to, what you give up has to be big. It has to be meaningful.” When I first saw this book in my library, I was ecstatic. Urban fantasy, gorgeous cover and a plot that gave me vibes of the Tri-wizard tournament from Harry Potter on steroids: something I didn’t know I wanted, but now that I had it in my hands I couldn’t wait. Although it wasn’t quite thát cool, I did like this novel for what it was: an action-filled, enjoyable, albeit fairly middle-of-the-road urban fantasy. The novel takes place in an underground society of magicians (The Unseen World) during an event called The Turning, essentially a magical tournament between Houses for power over the Unseen World. Our protagonist Sydney is the contestant for The House of Shadows, a House with as many dark secrets as that name suggests. Sydney herself however isn’t so transparent either, as she has an entire agenda of her own. An Unkindness of Magicians has a fast-paced plot that follow multiple perspectives, and wasn’t for a moment boring. This is simultaneously its biggest strength and weakness in my opinion. There’s barely a scene without action, which pulled me in from the start, but ended up wearing me out fairly quickly. Too little action can result in a bored reader, but too much can do the same, as it takes away from the grandness of the moments that should have real impact. An Unkindness of Magicians lacked that contrast for me, which made the entirety enjoyable enough, but anticlimactic in the end. Along with the fast pace of the novel go the many perspective switches. Simply stated: there were too many. Not only did it take me half of the novel to get on track with all the different names, I also felt like all of them had too little pagetime to be developed properly. Even Sydney felt like she was desperately trying to struggle her way out of the overpowered-kickass-female-protagonist-zone, but didn’t get the opportunity to do so. When it comes to the magic system and world building; I think the novel did a good job here. I always like the idea of magic that comes with a cost as it somehow balances the world out for me, and makes it more believable. (Yes, I realize it sounds ridiculous to talk about believability in the context of magic, but you get my point). The magic in this world is fueled by pain but can also be extracted from the bones or shadow of another person, making them suffer the pain in your place. Although this type of “bloodmagic” is a trope I usually enjoy, I can’t say I haven’t seen it before. Despite not being a groundbreaking new concept, it really works in the context of the novel, and that’s ultimately what counts. An Unkindness of Magicians all in all was a three-star read for me: very enjoyable, but not as memorable or special as I might have hoped. I do have to say it gave me quite the Darkest Minds vibes, so I would recommend it to fans of that series. Find this book on Goodreads

Genre: Apocalyptic, Fiction Published: Random House, 2012 My Rating: 3/5 stars “How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.” The Age of Miracles was a case of a great concept, with a disappointing execution, a faith that seems to befall many a dystopian or apocalyptic novel recently. It follows your typical format of essentially telling two stories; a largescale one about the world altering event that is taking place, and a smallscale one about the personal affairs of our protagonist. In this case, this is Julia, who we follow from age 11 to 22 throughout the novel. She struggles with the tense relationship between her parents, and her own developing relationship with a boy, al whilst life on earth is gradually changing for good due to a process called “the slowing”. The Slowing is a fascinating concept and by far the most interesting part of the novel to me. The earth’s rotation speed is gradually slowing down, resulting in each day being a little longer than the one before and essentially upsetting the speed and rhythm of living as a whole. In addition, our slower rotation leave us vulnerable to a higher net effect of gravity, which literally weighs people down and slows them further as a result. I really liked the concept, beginning to end, and just would have loved for it to be a bigger part of the story. Unfortunately I felt like the connection of Julia’s story and the Slowing was missing a little; one didn’t add to the other. Which was a shame, as with a coming-of-age concept combined with a time-based apocalypse like this, there was so much potential for that. Me and many others experience our own little time-apocalypses in real life as we grow older. Time seemingly only speeds up for us. It rushes us into adulthood, beyond adulthood, and before we know it we realize: we might already be a quarter, halfway through… maybe even already near the end. I was hoping The Slowing maybe would contrast that in Julia’s life, but instead The Slowing seems a storyline in itself, that at times even feels forced into Julia’s storyline, instead of organically blending into it. Julia’s story in itself was a little “vanilla” to me; nothing wrong with it, but nothing profound or revolutionary either. In fact, the entire novel left me with that feeling and for something with such a strong concept, I can’t help but feel disappointment. I’d recommend this novel to fans of Tommy Wallach’s We All Looked Up, as it reminded me a lot of that. Also, if you are in the mood for a family-friendly apocalyptic Hollywood movie in bookform (if that makes any sense): this might be the book for you. Find this book on Goodreads

February might be the shortest month, but if you ask me it had no business going by this fast. It felt like the month was over before it even started. Considering how busy this month was, both personally as well as college-wise I didn’t feel like I had read as much this month as I would have liked. Nonetheless, I went through a total of 8 books this month, mostly thanks to the wonderful concept of audiobooks. Compared to the great surprises that January had in store for me (including 4 5-star books), February was a little less spectacular. Nonetheless, with an average of 3,6 it wasn’t a bad month either. Unfortunately, because I had such a busy month, I did get somewhat behind on my review-writing, which means that I can’t include links to full reviews yet. I will update them as soon as possible, but for now, I have to settle for a short version and rating instead. Books read: 1. Caribou Island – David Vann By now, I know I can trust David Vann to absolutely destroy me with his work. He writes some of the best, but also some of the emotionally heaviest books I’ve ever read, and Caribou Island was no different. Caribou Island combines the story of survival against the bleak nature and unforgiving weather of Alaska with the struggle for survival of a marriage between two people that each have their own demons to wrestle with. It is the perfect synergy of nature- and character writing, executed to (almost) perfection. No word is out of place, each description of the frozen lands that surround our characters pertains to their story in some deeper way. Despite already loving David Vann, this novel gave me an even deeper appreciation of his talents as an author, as the only thing I could “fault” this book for was being so bleak it actually managed to depress me a little. The best words to describe the feeling of this novel are probably: bleak, bitter and hard, and it honestly had a bit of a draining effect on my mood, just from how heavy it felt. That doesn’t, however, make it any less of a masterpiece from a technical point of view. Full review to come: I look forward to sharing my thoughts soon. Rating: 4.5/5 stars 2. The Thief – Megan Whalen Turner The Thief has been on my TBR for years now. In fact, it holds the record for “longest on my want-to-read-shelf on Goodreads”. This month, I finally picked it up, with some mixed results. Although I wasn’t disappointed, The Thief didn’t quite live up to my expectations either. All in all I had a good time reading, yet it didn’t manage to rise above the typical “middle-of-the-road-fantasy” of its time. A full review is up on my website and can be found here. Rating: 3/5 stars 3. The Salt Path – Raynor Winn The Salt Path is quite the inspiring story of a couple who have seemingly lost everything over the course of just a few weeks. They lose their house and almost all their money to a bad investment, only days after husband Timothy has been diagnosed with an incurable degenerative brain condition. With nothing to lose, they make the impulsive decision to drop everything and walk the South West Coast Path from Somerset to Cornwall. Raynor Winn does a beautiful job of describing their experiences on the path, and how the trip changed them and helped them process what was happening to them. The book unfortunately is a little repetitive and slow in parts, yet arguably so was their journey, so I can’t quite fault it for that. It’s an insightful and honest journey, in more than one sense of the word, that sheds light on very true issues of loss, aging and most importantly the experience of poverty in England. Full review to come. Rating: 3.5/5 stars 4. The Glass Woman – Caroline Lea The Glass Woman can safely be called the surprise of the month. I have to admit, I hadn’t even heard of this book before it came out, yet when I saw it on display at my local bookstore, its gorgeous cover and intriguing premise called my name, and I decided to spend some of my last Christmas coupons on it. I wasn’t disappointed. The Glass Woman takes place in Iceland in 1686 and tells the story of Rosa, a young woman who is sent off into an arranged marriage to a man she has never met before. As if it weren’t enough of a challenge for her to adjust to her new life, strange tales regarding Jon and his previous wife Anna are being whispered around town. Is Jon hiding something, how did Anna die, and was she indeed, as many villagers suspected, a witch? The Glass Woman was very atmospheric and beautifully written and I truly struggled to put it down once I got into the story. Without a doubt one of the highlights (at least bookwise) of the month. Full review can be found here. Rating: 4.5/5 stars 5. In the Night Wood – Dale Bailey In the Night Wood is what I imagine the spiritual child of The Shadow of the Wind and The Haunting of Hill House would be like. A man, haunted by the recent loss of his daughter, travels to an old estate to investigate the life story of a forgotten fairytale author. Here, the lines between actual monsters and the monsters that haunt his mind begin to blur. The result was something that was great in parts, and mediocre in others. Despite a beautiful portrayal of grief, I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing here. Full review to come. Rating: 3/5 stars 6. The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried – Shaun David Hutchinson This was more a case of “not for me” than “bad book” Last year I was very pleasantly surprised by Shaun David Hutchinsons first book We Are The Ants, which was why The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried caught my eye once it was released. Unfortunately, I was less of a fan of this novel than I was of the first. It very much reminded me of We Are The Ants, but mostly of the parts I didn’t like. Hutchinsons characters suffer from the same problem John Greens characters do: being your stereotypical YA-special snow-flakes. They are quirky for the sake of it and react in ways that just seem unrealistic to me. I’ve not been feeling most of the YA I read recently, and all the reasons for it were very prominent in this novel. That being said, like in We Are The Ants, there are quite some profound and meaningful passages among the teenage fluff. Just for me: too little of the former, and too much of the latter. Rating: 2/5 stars 7. The Unseen World – Liz Moore It frankly took me a while to get into The Unseen World, but it was 100% worth the investment. A stunning portrayal of a daughter raised by her brilliant, but socially closed off father. We see their relationship develop from the daughters childhood years, to her adult life, when her father’s mind (the thing he owed his entire identity and livelihood to) begins to falter. I was fully prepared to give this book 4 or 4.5 stars, until the final chapters, the fully pushed me over the edge: this is a 5 star novel. Full review to come. Rating: 5/5 stars 8. The Book of Lost Things – John Conolly Last but most certainly not least this month was The Book of Lost Things by John Conolly. This one took me by surprise, in the sense that I loved it way more than I was expecting to. We follow David, a boy who struggles to come to terms with the way his young life is changing. His mother recently passed away, and now his father has remarried and brought a “new mother” and half-brother into David’s life. David copes by burying himself in his favorite books, until one day he quite literally finds himself lost in that fictional world. This is a wonderful story of the transition from childhood into adulthood in a young boy, told in a world where filled with dark fairytales, and even darker realities. Part Neil Gaiman, part Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls, entirely wonderful and possibly a new favorite. Full review to come Rating: 4.5/5 stars March TBR Again, March’s TBR won’t be a strict list of books I have to get to this month, but more like a “I-hope-to-read-some-of-them-and-possibly-some-more-list”. Two of them, I’ve already started at the moment of writing this, so I’ll be including them as well in this list. 1. The Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker 2. The Book of M – Peng Shepherd 3. The Anomaly – Michael Rutger 4. Bridges of Clay – Markus Zusak You can of course follow my progress during the month on my Goodreads, or await next month wrap up. I wish you all a happy reading month, and hope to see you back soon!

February is, besides Valentines day, also often seen as awards-month. One of the most famous examples of those is of course the Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars. Although I’m not the biggest movie-fan myself and often only know half of the nominees to be honest. However, when I saw a bookish-version of the Academy Awards circulating on booktube in the form of a tag a few years ago, it soon became on of my favorites. This year, I’ll be doing the Bookish Academy Awards for the second time. I believe this tag was originally created by Raegan at Peruse Project, but I’ve altered some of the questions slightly to fit my reading style a little better. A last year, I will be picking a winner from my list of books read in the previous year, so not necessarily the ones released in 2018. I will also not be including rereads. So without further delay: let’s get into the awards… BEST ACTOR best male protagonist This was perhaps the easiest category to judge. I’m not the type of reader who gets a lot of “book-crushes”, however, this year I may have gotten one. He is one of the sweetest and wisest male characters I’ve ever come across in literature. Brain over brawn, and room for strength in sensitivity and volubility over traditional “masculine features”. His name: Lazlo Strange Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor Artwork by Tara Spruit BEST ACTRESS best female protagonist It was going to be difficult to top last year’s winner Inej from The Six of Crows duology. Yet this years winner comes very close, as far as determination, strength of character and character development is concerned. She had a little bit of a head start, as I already had a great interest in her as a character before even reading this novel, but she more than owned her spot: Circe Circe by Madeline Miller BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR/ACTRESS favorite sidekick (male or female) Last year’s winner Zuzanna from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, won because of her strength, snark and sheer coolness level. Although this years winner is very different, they share quite some the same characteristics. This year’s winner: Mr. Kindly, the Shadow Cat The Nevernight Chronicals by Jay Kristoff BEST CINEMATOGRAPY best worldbuilding or favorite atmosphere There was heavy competition in this category this year. I had four nominees, only one of which could win. I still wanted to give the other two a little bit of the spotlight, be naming them as honorable mentions. Honorable mention nr. 1 and 2 have already won another category, and have therefore been passed over. Circe an Strange the Dreamer however both have incredible worldbuilding and atmosphere, including beautiful writing to bring it all to optimal fruition. Honorable mention nr. 2 also already has a place on this list later on, but still deserves a mention: The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Again; I’ll come back to this later. With the honorable mentions out of the way: time for the winner. The Gloaming – Kirsty Logan The Gloaming takes place in the same world as Kirsty Logans previous novel The Gracekeepers, both of which I adored. Where The Gracekeepers is set mostly on the expansive sea that has flooded most of the world, The Gloaming takes place on one of the small islands. Thanks to Logans vivid descriptions of the environment and atmosphere, I could picture every detail, every plant, every rock and every wave of the incoming tides. Although it isn’t the largest world to build, the depth Logan put into it makes it very deserving of this nr.1 spot. BEST SCREENPLAY best plot We can dance around it for hours, but since I’ve already mentioned it: best screenplay goes to my second-favorite book of the year for multiple reasons, one of them being the plot. If you’re a fan of fantasy, please pick it up if you haven’t already. This is one you cannot miss out on. The Name of The Wind – Patrick Rothfuss BEST ADAPTATION favorite book-to-movie adaptation I had the pleasure of watching one of the best films I’ve ever seen in 2018, so this was an easy choice. Not only a great film in it’s own right, but also a very unique take on an adaptation, this film is very different from the book, to the point where it’s more of an “interpretation” than an “adaptation”. Usually, this can be hit or miss, but in the case of this film, I adore both the book and the movie equally. This film is probably not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, nor is it advisable for the faint of heart. Nonetheless, as mentioned, it’s one of the most interesting movies I’ve ever seen, from the beautiful cinematography, great acting to the original spin on the source material. Best adaptation goes to: Annihilation, directed by Alex Garland Based on the novel of the same name by Jeff Vandermeer Fun fact: there was only one second contender I considered in this category. Interestingly enough, this was The Haunting of Hill House, which is also a Netflix Original series. This is not the end of the similarities though: both take the same approach of “interpreting” rather than following the exact script of the novel, both fall into the horror-genre with a psychological undertone and both were not shown in theaters but went directly to Netflix/DVD. All of which are qualities I hadn’t believed would be shared among my favorites if you’d told me a year ago… BEST COSTUME DESIGN Favorite book cover Publishers have really been stepping up their game in the last few years, especially when it comes to their book covers, so there was heavy competition. For that reason, I’ve included two honorable mentions, as well as the winner: BEST DOCUMENTARY best non-fiction Last year, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a memoir by a neurosurgeon with cancer, won this category. This year, the winner is again a “cancer memoir”, but of a different variety. This book isn’t about one patient with cancer, but is the memoir of the disease itself, according to the subtitle. An incredible, hard hitting book about the past, present and future of cancer and its treatment, that is a must-read for everybody operating in the medical field, but also understandable for a people without too much prior knowledge of medical practices: The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee BEST ARTISTIC FEATURE favorite poetry collection or poem Originally, I believe this prompt was “best graphic novel” but as I don’t read graphic novels at all, I changed it around a bit. I did read quite some poetry this year, both modern as well as classic poetry. Despite the large variety to pick from, I can’t help but come back to an old favorite as my winner. I’ve read almost all poems separately before, but I had never read the entire collection as a whole until 2018. The experience of reading it all together really added to my appreciation of an already loved collection, by an already loved author. Best poetry collection of the year goes to: Ariel – Sylvia Plath BEST DIRECTOR Author of the year She has three books out currently, and I read all three of them this year. All three of them were great, and managed a level of emotional connection from me that few others can. She has a fascination with the ocean, as do I, and a love of words and stories. She seems like a great person, and if I could meet an author of my choice in real life, she’d be on my shortlist. In my opinion, she is criminally underrated and should be famous among the literary greats of her time. This won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been here over the past year: Kirsty Logan BEST PICTURE Favorite standalone novel As number one and number two on my “best books of the year list” were technically part of a series, I had to look to number 3 for the winner in this category. Luckily, there were many amazing books last year, and my number 3 is still an all-time-favorite. I talked about it in my best books of the year list, so I won’t go into too many details here. Suffice to say: one of the biggest surprises, and one of my favorite books of all time. The last winner of today: Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel I’d love to hear from you what books you loved in 2018: leave a comment and mention what would have been your winner in any category of your choice. If you have a blog, Youtube-channel, Instagram or any other bookish-related feed and would like to do this tag: consider yourself tagged! Enjoy, and until next time: happy reading! Love Renée

1. Love at first sight Name a case of love at first sight, either based on the cover or the synopsis. I can honestly say that I fall in love with books more often than I do with guys. Publishers have been killing it lately with the creation of gorgeous covers and engaging back-flap-texts. Most recently, I came across The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea (the book I’m currently reading), which drew me in with its striking cover and the promise of a story set in Iceland, “a windswept land, haunted by witch trials and steeped in ancient sagas.” Say no more my friend, I’m sold! One of the most extreme examples of love at first sight for me was The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: I fell in love with the stunning 2015 paperback cover and the premise had me almost certain that this would be a new favorite. Unfortunately, I was a quite disappointed when it wasn’t just that. Nonetheless, no hard feelings towards this book. Those love-at-first-sight-crushes are not always meant to last, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth taking the risk ;) 2. Sweet like honey with corn-syrup on top Some books are just sickly sweet, and sometimes that is exactly why you love them. Are you someone who enjoys reading romance books, or do they tend to be too sweet for your taste? (Name some examples if you have them) As many of you may know by now, I’m not an avid romance reader. It’s quite out of character that I’m even doing a post dedicated to a holiday that is mainly focused on love and romance in the first place. Many popular romance authors, like Nicolas Sparks, Colleen Hoover, and even Diane Gabaldon, just tend to not be my cup of tea. I enjoy reading about relationships, but more so the later stages of a relationship, rather than those first butterfly-and-sweaty-palms moments. You especially lose me when those butterflies turn into immediate, love-at-first-sight-devotion, as is often the case in romance novels. I’m personally someone who falls in love quite slowly (at least compared to the stuff in books), and when two characters declare their love for another after just the first date, I just can’t relate. 3. Love finds you when you least expect it Name a book you weren’t expecting to love as much as you did Now this happens to me quite a lot. Some of my all-time favorite novels were complete surprises. For example: I wasn’t expecting to love Station Eleven as much as I did. Usually, post-apocalyptic novels aren’t my favorites, but this is an absolutely stunning novel, unlike any I’ve ever read. Instead of focusing on the “adventure-side”, as most post-apocalyptic books tend to do, Station Eleven focusses on characters, and the way they deal with everything that has happened. Another surprise on my favorite list was Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I picked it up as an in-between thrilling read to take a break from the series of hard-hitting books I had been reading around that time, but got a read with so much more depth than I was expecting. I always feel obligated to put in a small disclaimer: this is a weird one, and much of what I got from it is a matter of interpretation, so this won’t be to everybody’s taste. Yet if you enjoy sci-fi with a thriller/horror edge, it’s absolutely worth a try. 4. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. What fictional food item would you share with your date on Valentines day? Is it wrong to say butterbeer? Because I honestly can’t think of a better one that I’d love to try. 5. Romance is dead…? A terrible romantic plotline that ruined your enjoyment of an otherwise good book Although I wouldn’t say it completely ruined the book, I really didn’t enjoy the romantic subplot in Children of Blood and Bone. The characters have so much else on their minds (magic, a racial war, deaths of people close to them) that I just can’t see how they have any room in their minds for love. This often happens in YA-fantasy, and I’m sure we can all think of some other examples just from the top of our heads. *cough* Caraval, Passenger, Sarah J Maas *cough* Falling in love in unlikely circumstances I can forgive, however, getting your priorities completely wrong and putting your puppy-dog-love over some lifechanging events… That’s a whole other playbook, and one I can’t get behind. 6. Size doesn’t matter Or does it…? Do you prefer shorter or longer books? Name your favorite short book and you favorite long book. As far as books are concerned, size does matter, but I don’t necessarily prefer one over the other, as both long books as well as short books have their respective strengths. What I love in a long book is the opportunity for deep worldbuilding and character development over a longer time. I love getting familiar with a world and the people inhabiting it and feeling like I’ve been with them forever. Longer books tend to give me that feeling more often, possibly also because it just takes me longer to finish them. An example of this is The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, one of my all-time favorite fantasies. Something I possibly appreciate even more though, is when a book can fit that same depth and/or emotional punch in a shorter books. There absolutely is an art cutting out everything obsolete and keeping just the core intact. A book that does that wonderfully is A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, which manages to fit more emotion in just 200 pages, than any other book did for me, period. 7. Love is blind Name a book you know is flawed, but you love regardless. Every book has its flaws, some more than others. I personally have a soft spot for The Stravaganza series (the original trilogy: I never read the further sequels) by Mary Hoffman. Although many people tell me its cliché, unoriginal and boring, I can’t help but feel so much nostalgia for this series. Similarly, I adore The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, for the great memories I have of it. Both these series introduced me to, respectively urban fantasy and high fantasy, and paved a way for a genre I absolutely adore now. With both, I see some clear flaws in writing and pacing now, but they will forever hold a place on my favorite shelf regardless. 8. Absence makes the heart grow fonder A new release or sequel that has yet to be released, but you can’t wait for. When making this question I was thinking mostly of releases that are far away on the horizon, and therefore make the longing even stronger. Two books came to mind: First of all: set to release in November 2019: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I’ve talked about it ad nauseum, so I won’t go into depth on what this one is about. Second… You can probably guess this… Doors of Stone by Patrick Rothfuss… Please Pat… Please…? 9. Don’t kiss and tell Your favorite character that didn’t come out with all their secrets at once and kept an air of mystery about them. My first and favorite character to come to mind at the mention at this description would be Kaz Brekker from the Six of Crows Duology. He’s the kind of character where you know he must have a story that has made him the way he is, yet we don’t find out what it is until deep in the second book. I really like Kaz, and similarly the rest of the cast of Six of Crows, as all of them fit that profile to some extent, yet none of them fall into the category of “stereotypical brooding bad boy/girl”. Their actions make sense, and especially once you learn their stories, they were more relatable to me than I might like to admit. 10. All you need is love Name three qualities a book needs to have in order for you to love it. They say there are two types of readers: character-readers and plot-readers. Although I identify with both, I’d probably describe myself as mostly a character-reader. A book needs to have engaging, interesting and well developed characters for me to like it. Secondly, I’m a sucker for beautiful writing. Not every book needs to be a lyrical epistle, but there is something about carefully constructed and beautifully flowing sentences that can really set a book apart from the others in this text-based medium. Some of my favorite authors who know their way around words include Laini Taylor, Patrick Rothfuss, Kazuo Ishiguro and Kirsty Logan. Thirdly, all of my favorite books tend to be the ones that resonate with me on an emotional level. Whether it be inspirational or just relatable in some way or form, I love when a book puts into words something you’ve felt but never said out loud yourself. In a way, knowing that not just the author, but many people around the world have felt the same thing, gives a deep sense of connection. Most of my favorite books therefore tend to be the ones that feel like more than just “a story”, but carry an emotional layer with them, no matter what that emotion might be. 11. True love lasts a lifetime what book will have a special place in your heart for the rest of your life. My answer for this question will probably always be the same: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. I mention it twice in this tag, and for good reason. It currently still holds the position as my all-time favorite novel, for just that reason. It came to me at the right moment in time and (literally) hit extremely close to my own home. I don’t think I have ever before or since felt like someone else had put my story and my emotions onto paper. It helped me in a difficult time and I will forever love it for that. Other books that will have places in my heart are my favorite childrensbooks: especially Matilda by Roald Dahl, Kleine Sofie en Lange Wapper by Els Pelgrom and the entire works of Paul Biegel. Just seeing their spines brings back memories of home. Check back in later this week for new uploads, or find me on Goodreads.

Genre: Fantasy, YA Published: Greenwillow Books, 2009. Originally published 1996 by Harper Collins Rating: 3/5 stars “A little danger adds spice to life.” I’m a little embarrassed to admit that this indeed was my first time reading The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. The Thief holds the humble honor of being the very first book I ever added to my “want-to-read”-shelf on Goodreads, and until now, used to be the book that has been on that shelf the longest. Today is the day that it finally was cast from its throne (leaving … in its place). Did it live up to the expectations though? Yes and no. The Thief reads and feels a lot like a classic quest-fantasy, and was a very enjoyable read as such. I can’t help but feel it was a very middle-of-the-road read, though, and didn’t quite blow my mind (yet). The plot is simple: Gen is a thief recruited from the Kings prison to participate in a quest to steal an ancient artifact that hold great political power. The first half of the novel focusses on the journey, and is honestly quite slow and repetitive. The runtime of this segment could have quite easily been halved if all the talk about food and Gens complaining would have been cut out. The second half of the novel is where things get more interesting: Gen sets out to stealing the artifact, and we learn more about the political implications of this mission. This is where the novel shines; Megan Whalen Turner builds an extensive world that, although we only see the tip of the iceberg in this novel, feels in depth and full of potential for the sequels. A world with a deep backstory, history and lore unfortunately often comes with a lot of exposition, as is the case here. There is quite some “butler-dialogue” (people telling each other information that they should both already know, just to inform the reader), but not so much that it affected my overall enjoyment. What did affect my enjoyment however where the aforementioned pacing issues. The first half of the novel is quite slow, whilst the second half tries to cram too much in towards the end. This especially shows in the character development and relations. The attitude of some of the main characters, particularly Gen, Sophos and the Magus, towards each other takes 180-degree turn that I frankly didn’t feel was earned yet. I would have liked to see more interaction that would have warranted such a change of heart between them. This would likely also have made the final twist at the end a bit more impactful, as it felt a little clichéd and anticlimactic to me, as is. Despite the previously mentioned flaws, I did have a good time with The Thief, and I think it does a great job of setting up a series that has a lot of potential for great things. I’m excited to see where it goes from here and I’m happy that, even 23 years after release, I jumped on this bandwagon. In summary, it’s a flawed read, that has some clichés, pacing issues and rushed character development. If you enjoy fantasy (especially the older type of 90’s fantasy) however: don’t sleep on this one like I did. It’s a short read and, especially if the rest of the series gets even better, worth your time. Add this book on Goodreads

We all have those books on our TBR’s that we are just that little bit more excited for. Those books that, either based on the synopsis, previous experience with the author, or even just rave community-reviews, you expect to be 5-star reads. I’ve always been very hesitant of making a list like this one, as I really don’t want to overhype books for anyone (including myself). That being said, due to some personal circumstances I haven’t been feeling the best, and I feel a readingslump looming. To cheer myself up, I decided to look at all the great books on my TBR and create this list nonetheless. It turned out way longer than I was expecting (over 15 books), so I’ll only cover part of this list. These are six of my 5 star-TBR-predictions that I plan on reading in the (near) future. The Muse of Nightmares – Laini Taylor Being the sequel to one of my favorite books of last year, this one couldn’t not be featured on this list. Ever since it came out last October, it’s been high up on my TBR but haven’t gotten to it yet, and am now debating on re-reading Strange the Dreamer before starting it. Although the majority of you will be familiar with this duology, a quick explanation of what I loved about Strange the Dreamer: We follow Lazlo Strange, a librarian obsessed with researching a long forgotten city, now only referred to as Weep. His strange obsession makes Lazlo the bud of many jokes, until one day, he’s recruited by a diverse group of explorers who’ve set out to find this lost city. The journey they embark on is filled with magic, incredible worlds, some of my favorite characters of all time and of course: Laini Taylors beautiful writing. If The Muse of Nightmares is anything like its predecessor, I can’t see it getting any less than a full 5 star-rating from me. Bridges of Clay – Markus Zusak Although this novel was released to some mixed reviews, this is a case where I fully trust the author to come out with something amazing. Markus Zusak is well-known for his first bestseller The Bookthief. As a child growing up in the Netherlands I had a great interest in books concerning World War II and have read more than I can keep track of. For this reason it’s difficult for a book on the topic to stand out above the rest, yet The Bookthief did so by the sheer beauty of its writing. When I heard Zusak was writing a novel with grief and family as its central themes, I couldn’t think of anything with more potential to be a new favorite. I’ve heard people describe it as slow and “too lyrical”, but both of these aspects are not usually things that hinder my enjoyment of a book, so despite the mixed reviews, my hopes remain very high. The Great Alone – Kristin Hannah Third on my list is another author that I trust to do great things. I loved Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and am frankly even more excited about the premise of The Great Alone. I love stories that combine beautiful, atmospheric nature-writing with an a good character exploration, and this sounds just like that. Described as: “an unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, love and loss, the fight for survival and the wildness that lives in both man and nature” this sounds straight up my alley. Not to mention this book is one of the highest rated books on my entire TBR (4.33 average on Goodreads). I really *really* hope this doesn’t let me down. The Unseen World – Liz Moore The Unseen World is a favorite of one of my friends, whose opinion I trust when it comes to books. The story focusses on a father-daughter relationship, when the father begins to suffer from the early stages of early-onset dementia. This promises to be a well-written and emotional story and I can’t wait to have tug my heartstrings. I’m planning on reading it this month (February), so expect an update soon. Every Heart a Doorway – Seanan McGuire A bit of an outlier, being a 170-page story, among a list of literary bricks, and probably the book I hesitated the most about putting on this list. The concept sounds amazing to me, and the avalanche of amazing reviews that buried this one upon release make me very hopeful that I will love this as well. The fact that it’s so short makes me ever more hopeful, as I can always appreciate the skill in condensing a story down to its core, cutting out 200 unnecessary pages, without losing any of the quality of the original story. My only fear is that I’ll fall in the category of people who find this “too weird/quirky”, just for the sake of being quirky. I love weirdness, as long as it serves a purpose to the story, and not simply as an attempt to be different. I really hope this one delivers. A Wise Mans Fear – Patrick Rothfuss Being the sequel to one of my favorite books of all time, it’s not hard to imagine why it’s on this list. The only question is: why haven’t I read it yet? Yet I’m pretty sure most of you will know the answer to that question as well: I and many others with me are still (not so patiently) awaiting the announcement of book three in this trilogy. Please Patrick… Just please… I can’t wait to add another 5-star prediction to my list. Expect an update once I’ve read these 6 books, reporting back on if my expectations were met. Let me know in a comment, or send me a recommendation on Goodreads for a book that you expect to be 5-stars. I hope to see you in my next post, and until than: happy reading. Love Renée

Rolling straight out from the Holiday spirits of December, January is always a great opportunity to start the year out on a high note. In spite of a few disappointments, January 2019 did just that for me. I’ve had quite the eventful month on a personal- and work-base, yet still somehow managed to read a total of 9 books, including 4 that were over 500 pages as per my goal to prioritize “big books” this year. As many of you know, I'm quite sparing when it comes to giving out 5-star ratings, yet January 2019 managed to pry 3 (possibly 4!) out of me, all of which I felt were justified! If this is an indication of the year to come, I can't wait to see what 2019 brings me next! Books Read La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1) - Philip Pullman As the sequel/prequel to one of my all-time favorite series His Dark Materials, my hope were high for this one. Unfortunately I was quite let down by what I got. La Belle Sauvage was quite an enjoyable "adventure-read" and by no means a bad book, yet it pales in comparison to the depth and beauty that His Dark Materials brought. Full Review can be found here Rating: 2.5/5 stars The Thing about Jellyfish - Ali Benjamin For some reason that I can't quite explain, there is a special part in my heart resereved for beautiful, well written middle-grade novels, that can transcend their age demographic and bring something for both children, as well as adults. This is exactly the type of book that The Thing About Jellyfish is. A deeply heartwarming, yet heartbreaking story of a girl trying to figure out her place in the world, whilst dealing with the recent death of her best friend. Full review to come. Rating: 5/5 stars Elevation - Stephen King Elevation came to my radar when it was elected "best horror of 2018" in the Goodreads Choice Awards. Unfortunately, I can't say I agree with this pick... Not only is this novella only placed in the horror-genre because of its authors reputation as such, it was far from one of Kings better books, in my opinion. It managed to keep my engaged in its "mystery" for its short length, but was otherwise quite a disappointment. Full review can be found here Rating: 2/5 stars Vele Hemels Boven de Zevende - Griet op de Beeck The first Dutch book I read in 2019 was one by an author of whom I have now read all but one of their books. Her work is very hit-or-miss for me: I loved "Het Beste Wat We Hebben" but wasn't a fan of "Kom hier opdat ik u kus" and "Gezien de Feiten". Vele Hemels Boven de Zevende was one of my favorites by her, which is especially impressive considering it's her debut novel. She is a Belgian author so unfortunately, her books are only available in Dutch, so I understand that not everybody will be able to pick them up. If you do speak Dutch and have the opportunity to, this is one I do recommend. Rating: 4/5 stars Tales from the Inner City - Shaun Tan I picked the Dutch Translation of Tales from the Inner City ("Verhalen uit de Binnenstad") up from my library in December, purely based on the cover and was blown away by the beauty (in every sense of the word) it kept inside. Being a lover of the English language, I knew I wanted to read the original version as well. As expected: I loved it even more than the translation. This collection of short storied, combined with stunning illustrations, all centered around a different animal is more on the experimental side and won't appeal to everybody. It sure did to me though! I loved the content, and especially loved the style and format. Full review to come. Rating: 5/5 stars The Book of Strange New Things - Michel Faber My feelings before starting The Book of Strange New Things were equel parts anticipation and dread. On the one hand, it's (one of my favorite people in the book-community) Jen Campbell's favorites. On the other hand, it's a novel that seems to focus on religion, which can be quite the controversial topic, and I was very nervous it might rub me the complete wrong way. Having read it, I can say my fears were completely unnescessary: this was an instant favorite. Full review can be found here A link to Jen Campbells channel can be found here Rating: 5/5 stars The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon I finally decided to crawl out from under my rock of isolation and pick up one of the most hyped and most popular books out there. Now I can finally join in with the conversation, be it with a slightly unpopular opinion. Although I understand why so many people love it, it's not a new favorite for me. I loved the atmosphere, the premise and the descriptions of beautiful of Barcelona, but was quite let down by the ending and lack of characterdepth. I had a lot of mixed thoughts about this after finishing it, which can be found in my post here. Rating: 3/5 stars All The Birds, Singing - Evie Wyld All The Birds, Singing, despite its bright and spring-inspired title and cover, is for sure the darkest books so far for 2019. Similar in tone and execution to works of David Vann, this is a hard-hitting novel that doesn't hold back on any of the ugly realities of the scenario's it describes. Although I did really feel it was wonderfully written and well structured, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed at times, leading to me distancing myself from the story. My full review can be found here Rating: 3.5/5 stars The Diviners - Libba Bray I technically haven't finished this one at the time of writing this post (I'm about 90% through the audiobook), yet I still wanted to include it in my wrap up for January. The Diviners was one of the longest standing TBR-books, and I honestly can't tell you what kept me from picking it up for such a long time. This month I finally took the plunge with the audiobook and absolutely adored it! Although I still have about 90 minutes to go, I can already tell this is probably going to be another 5-star read for me. I highly highly recommend the audiobook read by January LaVoy (I got mine through Audible). The narration is incredible and truly adds to the atmosphere and feel of the novel. I can't wait to see how it ends. Predicted Rating: 5/5 stars February TBR As most of you know, I don't like setting strict monthly TBR-lists for myself. Occasionally I do have some books I want to read within a certain timewindow, usually due to library return-dates or just because I'm extremely excited for them. This month I have 3 of these on my short-term-TBR, that I hope to get to in February. 1. The Unseen World - Liz Moore 2. Strange the Dreamer - Laini Taylor (reread in preperation for reading The Muse of Nightmares) 3. Caribou Island - David Vann You can of course follow my progress during the month on my Goodreads, or await next month wrap up. I hope your January was as good a reading-month as mine, and of course hope that the rest of the year will continue in that line for all of us!

Genre: literary fiction Published: Vintage publishing, May 2014 My Rating: 3.5/5 stars Birds Singing, Everywhere by Evie Wyld is a case that proves that you can’t judge a book by its cover. The beautiful cover and title remind me of spring, but beware going in that this book is dark. Evidence of these dark tones can be found even in the first chapter, as we meet our protagonist, a reclusive shepherdess, inspecting (and describing in disturbing detail) the carcass of a mutilated sheep. From there, the story splits into two timelines. The first is told chronologically, and follows her isolated life on the British isles, with only her sheep and dog named simply dog as her solitary company. The second is made up of a series of flashbacks and sheds light on Jakes past life experiences and how they drove her to the unconventional lifestyle she picked. Interestingly, this second storyline is told in reverse chronological order, going back in time from an even that changed everything. The structure of the novel, weaving these two contra-chronological storylines together, is one of its strongest assets in my opinion. Although it requires a little effort from the reader at first to understand what’s going on, the execution is very well done, and contrary to my expectations not confusing or distracting. Although it might sound counter-intuitive: knowing the “end” of one of the story lines and working back from there adds a layer of suspense and unease to the reading experience. “Uneasy “ is a word that I think fits this novel quite well, for better and for worse. Once again: Birds Singing, Everywhere is quite a dark read with some heavy subject matter at its core. It reminds me quite a bit of the work of David Vann: hard-hitting work that is beautifully executed , but at times so deeply dark and pessimistic that it can become almost draining to read. For me it’s the book-equivalent of >70% cocoa-chocolate: bitter and absolutely delicious, but best enjoyed one small piece at the time. Too much will make you nauseous and overwhelm you. This is also my biggest critique of Birds Singing, Everywhere. Where David Vann strikes the perfect balance between “too dark” and “just right”, Evie Wyld went too far with both the brutality, both in themes, as well as with the description of “sheep-gore”. Too often, I got overwhelmed which resulted in me emotionally distancing myself from the story. A repulsed reader is not an engaged reader, and unfortunately I fell in the former category multiple times whilst reading. Other than that minor gripe, this is a beautifully written and hard hitting book. If you want a highly atmospheric and smartly crafted novel and feel comfortable reading about the subject-matter involved: this might be for you. Be warned though: it’s not the best choice for those who are faint of heart of weak of stomach. Find this book on Goodreads

Although we are already past “official” blue Monday, today felt surprisingly like one for me. Combining the chilly, grey weather here with the start of another workweek, all I want is just a little pick-me-up. Like many others, my go-to for situations like this is a good cup of coffee. In honor of the black liquid gold that makes our Mondays just that bit more bearable, I’ll be doing the Coffee Booktag. Thanks to the original creator of this tag BangadyBangz! You can find his channel by clicking here. BLACK – Name a series that's tough to get into but has hardcore fans. For me, the series that are hardest to get into are usually high fantasy ones with extensive worldbuilding. Coincidentally, it’s exactly this in depth world that makes me love them once I get my bearings. One example of such a situation was The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. It took me 3 attempts to start The Final Empire, yet now it is one of my favorite books of all time. Another example would be The Broken Earth Trilogy, which has a massive fanbase, yet is quite tough to get into. For this reason, I still haven’t read the second book, even though I really want to do so. Hopefully I’ll get to it somewhere this year. PEPPERMINT MOCHA – Name a book that gets more popular during the winter or a festive time of year. I feel like saying Harry Potter or A Christmas Carol would be too much of a cliché, but they probably are the most prominent ones. This year I’ve seen “The Bear and the Nightingale” around a lot, and for good reason. It has the perfect winter atmosphere, where you can almost feel the cold radiating from the pages. When the snow is falling outside, and you just want to stay in with a warm drink and a book on the couch, this is your companion for the night. HOT CHOCOLAT – what is your favorite childrensbook? I have a long, long list of childhood favorites, although many of them are available Dutch only. My favorite childhood authors were Paul Biegel and (once I was a little bit older) Thea Beckman. If you are Dutch or Belgian and have read anything by those authors, let me know in a comment: I’d love to hear from you! As far as more internationally available books go, some of my absolute favorites were Mathilda by Roald Dahl and Ronja Rövardotter (translated as Ronia, the robber’s daughter). I legitimately wished I was either one of these protagonists for a large chunk of my childhood. Still both books stand proudly on my shelves, and make me feel a little bit warm inside every time I look at them. DOUBLE SHOT OF ESPRESSO – Name a book that kept you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. a book that actually kept me up for the majority of the night, because I was just unable to put it down was Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. The story and mystery, combined with the fact that nearly every chapter ends on a cliff-hanger just had me turning those pages like crazy. If you’re looking for a good (sci-fi)thriller, this is my go-to recommendation. STARBUGS – Name a book you see everywhere. At the moment: Birdbox by Josh Malerman. As Netflix has just released the movie, I see people all around me speedreading the book to be able to watch it. I personally read the book about a year ago and loved it. I want to see the movie, but haven’t gotten to it yet. DECAF – name a book that disappointed you My most recent “controversial” disappointment was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. As a book that is showered in 5-star-reviews, it just couldn’t and didn’t live up to the hype for me. If you want to read my full review, you can find it here. THAT HIPSTER COFFEE SHOP: give a book by an indie author or an underrated book a shoutout I’m going for an underrated book for this one: The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan was possibly my absolute favorite book of 2018 (at least in the top 3), and it baffles me that it has only 528 ratings to date. Please people, stop sleeping on this one, so I have someone to discuss the story with. In a similar vein, I’d like to shout out the short-story collection By light we knew our Names by Anne Valente, which only has 398 ratings on Goodreads. Beautiful, atmospheric short-stories that focus on grief, through a lens of magical realism. THE PERFECT BLEND: Name a book or series that was both bitter and sweet but ultimately satisfying. My most bittersweet book will probably forever be A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. As a novel about a thirteen year-old boy, dealing with the imminent death of his mother from cancer, you can probably imagine how the “bittersweet-part” comes in. When people ask me for my favorite book of all-time, this is usually my answer, for the simple reason that I feel such a personal connection with this book. I’ve found comfort and a kind of catharsis in books before, but never to the level I did here. You can find my full review here, although I have to warn you: it’s probably one of my worst written ones. I struggle to put into words what this book meant to me, but many of you who have read it can probably understand. This has been the Coffee Booktag. May your coffee be strong, your mondays short, and your books long! I'll see you again in my next post and until then: happy reading! Love Renée