Book Review #683 - Torn by Cat Clarke

Four girls. One dead body. A whole lot of guilt.

Alice King isn’t expecting the holiday of a lifetime when she sets off with her classmates on a trip to the Scottish wilderness, but she’s not exactly prepared for an experience beyond her darkest nightmares… 

Alice and her best friend Cass are stuck in a cabin with Polly, the social outcast, and Rae, the moody emo-girl. Then there’s Tara – queen of mean. Powerful, beautiful and cruel, she likes nothing better than putting people down. 

Cass decides it’s time to teach Tara a lesson she’ll never forget. And so begins a series of events that will change the lives of these girls forever...

A compelling story of guilty secrets, troubled friendship and burgeoning love.

My Rating: 3/5

This book took me a considerably longer time to read than a book of this size would take on average and this was simply due to the fact that I read it over the Christmas period. 

The plot is what initially drew me into reading this book however I thought it was going to be more of a mystery novel than what was presented. 

The main theme of the book is guilt and it explores how differently people deal with it. 

The protagonist Alice was rather annoying. She let everyone just walk all over her and never stood up for herself. The relationship she commenced with her dead ex-friend's brother was all kinds of wrong. 

The other characters were all pretty stereotyped and I did not like any of them at all. 

The only thing that kept me reading this book once I started it was that I wanted to know if Alice would eventually do the right thing and tell someone the truth about what happened. 

Overall, I was rather disappointed by this book. I felt like so much was promised from the synopsis but the annoying characters and lack of plot development really let the book down. 

Book Review #649 - Me Before You (Me Before You #1) by Jojo Moyes

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

This was a book that I knew what the ending was going to be from the outset - not only was the name of the sequel (which happened to be printed on the cover of my edition) a massive tip off, but it just followed the trend of similar type books. 

The main difference with this book from the others was that I was actually really accepting of the ending of this one which really surprised me. 

The book starts with Will's accident and then carries on with him struggling with the transition from being a really active guy to being stuck in a wheelchair. 

The accident hurts Will as much mentally as it did physically and when he shows no signs of improvement in either, his positive thinking mother hires Lou as a carer. 

I loved that this novel delved into Will's family so it gave a broader view of how his accident affected everyone in his life. 

Lou was such a bright, yet lost character. She tries to hide behind her eccentric wardrobe. Her family were loving yet very dysfunctional. 

The relationship between Lou and Will was rather slow paced, and I never really grasped the 'romantic' spark between them. I really did enjoy their friendship though. 

I have yet to see the film adaptation of this book which I am really interested in seeing as none of the actors are really what I pictured for the characters. 

Book Review #619 - Room by Emma Donoghue

My Rating: 5/5


Source: Bought


Buy: The Book Depository


Goodreads

Jack is five, and excited about his birthday. He lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures eleven feet by eleven feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside...

Told in Jack's voice, Room is the story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible. Unsentimental and sometimes funny, devastating yet uplifting, Room is a novel like no other.

This book is one that I LOVED so much more than I thought I would and it is definitely in my top 5 reads of 2015. 

I just found Jack so completely fascinating and I loved that he was the narrator, just his complete innocence and curiosity made him incredibly likable. 

Life in the room was also interesting and just the thought that Jack has known nothing but life inside those four walls for his first five years of life really made me think. 

As I live in Australia, the movie adaptation of this book is not yet out (it comes out this Thursday I believe) and given the amount of award attention it is getting I have high hopes for it and can not wait to see it. 

Through Jack's innocent eyes, it is obvious what is going on, and what horrible things his mother is going through. In some ways because the story is told through Jack the reader is somewhat sheltered from the true terror of the situation. 

My part of the book that I found most interesting was watching Jack transition to life outside the room - the world he thought only existed on TV. 

Book Review #609 - Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2) by Diana Gabaldon

My Rating: 4/5


Source: Bought


Buy: The Book Depository


Goodreads

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to the majesty of Scotland's mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones, about a love that transcends the boundaries of time, and about James Fraser, a warrior whose gallantry once drew the young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his.Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful daughter as Claire's spellbinding journey continues in the intrigue-ridden court of Charles Edward Stuart, in a race to thwart a doomed uprising, and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves.

I read Outlander back in August and given the way it ended, I wanted a break from it before starting this one. However, I recently started the TV show (which is amazing) and felt like finally returning to this world. 

When I first started reading this book I felt like I had missed something as it is set 20 or so years (or 220 years) from where it left off. I found myself slowly being immersed in the story again though and I never looked back. 

This book had so many political aspects to it that truthfully were a little boring at times but had crucial implications to the story as a whole and were definitely needed. 

So many of the characters from Outlander were not present in this book (or had very minor roles) which enabled full attention on Claire and Jamie. I felt like their relationship developed a lot in this book. 

What I loved most about this book was that it was set around a real historical event. I love books that make me want to spend hours on wikipedia after reading them. I feel like I am learning a lot about Scottish history and culture just from reading these books which I enjoy. 

There were a few new characters but none impressed me as much as Fergus. Apart from Jamie and Claire, he is definitely my favourite character in this series. 

The whole 'other' story about Claire, her daughter and Roger was a little confusing to me. I can't see how that part of the story can develop without causing ripples in the time continuum. 

The ending of this book was a really good cliff hanger and has made me want to read Voyager straight away. 

Book Review #597 - The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

My Rating: 3.5/5


Source: Bought



Buy: The Book Depository


Goodreads



Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Imagine if she hadn't forgotten the book. Or if there hadn't been traffic on the expressway. Or if she hadn't fumbled the coins for the toll. What if she'd run just that little bit faster and caught the flight she was supposed to be on. Would it have been something else - the weather over the Atlantic or a fault with the plane?

Hadley isn't sure if she believes in destiny or fate but, on what is potentially the worst day of each of their lives, it's the quirks of timing and chance events that mean Hadley meets Oliver...

Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

This was a super quick and easy book to read and I read it in one sitting. 

The book was mostly light-hearted but it did have its heavier, serious moments especially regarding family. 

The relationship between Hadley and Oliver develops throughout the book so the title of the book is somewhat misleading - although the true reason for the title is revealed on the last page of the book. 

The book is full of English culture and as a bit of an Anglophile I loved it. I found that the slang used was similar to that used here in Australia. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book but I didn't feel like it will be very memorable as it didn't do enough to set itself above those in a similar genre. 

Book Review #582 - Wind in the Wires (Woody Creek #4) by Joy Dettman

My Rating: 4/5


Source: Pan MacMillan Australia


Buy: Booktopia


Goodreads

The wind is whispering in Woody Creek... Change is in the air

It's 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged – kicking and screaming – into the swinging sixties. 

Jenny's daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother's hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met. A mistake from Cara's teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white wedding and happily ever after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man. 

But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other's lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted...

I absolutely loved the first two books in this series and as I thought that the third one dropped away a bit I was looking forward to how I would perceive this one. 

As someone who predominantly reads young adult literature, I enjoyed the young narrators of Georgie and Cara. 

As characters, I loved Georgie and apart from Jenny is probably my favourite character in the entire series. Although I had mixed feelings about Cara I could understand why she was the way she was. 

Cara was born and raised in the city and raised by older parents which is why she came across as rather snobbish and uptight. I did however enjoy her quest for identity and acceptance. 

The past and present combine to bring secrets to light that Jenny had hoped to keep hidden. For the most part the 'secret' was kind of underwhelming and I am still unsure even after a week after finishing the book whether I am okay with the ending or not. 

Margot was as annoying as ever and I am interested to see where her character goes as she is becoming very much like Amber (who ended up in a mental institution). 

I found this to be more of a bridging book as some of the storylines and characters are merging and is setting it all up well for the final two books. 

Overall, this is fast becoming my favourite adult fiction series and also my favourite Aussie series and I highly recommend them. 

Book Review #566 - When You're Back (Rosemary Beach #12) by Abbi Glines

My Rating: 3.5/5




Source: Simon and Schuster Australia





Buy: TBD





Goodreads

Love is a journey - Rosemary Beach is the destination...The future is bright for Reese Ellis. She has Mase Colt-Manning, the man of her dreams, and a family she didn't know existed until her long-lost father arrived on her doorstep in Rosemary Beach. Everything is finally falling into place. While Reese is visiting her new family in Chicago, Mase spends time with his "cousin," Aida, who has worshipped him since childhood. Unrelated by blood, Mase and Aida have been raised to think of each other as family. But when Reese returns, she can tell something isn't quite right. Aida clearly resents Reese and excels at manipulative little games. And though Mase is unsuspecting, Reese knows Aida doesn't love him like a cousin should...

This is the 12th book in the Rosemary Beach series. I had not read the previous 11 books and I had not problems understanding this book. They seem to be more companions to one another rather than follow a continuous plot so don't feel worried about reading them in order. 

This book is first and foremost a romance book. This is not usually my type of book as I prefer romance to be more of a sub-plot but I found that I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. 

As I hadn't read the other 11 books the characters obviously weren't familiar to be but I found that I grasped pretty quickly the dynamics of it all. 

The characters were a little stereotyped but that didn't really bother me as it wasn't that much of an issue. 

The plot seemed a little all over the place. The cousin disappears for a large chunk of the book and didn't turn out to be as big an issue as the synopsis would suggest. 

Book Review #545 - The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart

Mark has been in and out of hospital his whole life – and he’s fed up.

So when his cancer returns, he decides he’s had enough. Running away with his dog Beau, he sets out to climb a mountain – and it’s only when he’s left everything behind that Mark realises he has everything to live for.

My Rating: 4.5/5

I received this book for review from Chicken House for Scholastic Australia. 

When I first laid eyes on this book and read the synopsis I thought it not only sounded similar to The Fault in Our Stars but also that their covers are the same colours. 

This book is so much more than that. In fact, this is hands down the best book I have read so far this year. 

I love dogs in literature and will more than likely read a book simply because there is a dog involved so I was probably always going to love this book. 

Book Review #544 - Half my Facebook Friends are Ferrets by J.A Buckle

Sixteen-year-old Josh hopes to be a metalhead someday. Maybe then he would finally be considered as cool as his dad was. Right now, he's just a wannabe. He's never been kissed, he keeps getting weird mail, and a big chunk of his Facebook friends are, well, ferrets. Josh documents his teenage woes with a hilariously honest voice. From arguments with his nagging mother to awkward encounters with girls, from figuring out his future band name to learning the truth about his late father, follow Josh as he navigates his embarrassments and his triumphs.

My Rating: 3/5

I received this book for review from Hardie Grant Egmont. 

Given the small amounts of male narrators in young adult literature, it was refreshing to read a book from a male perspective especially one as unique as Josh. 

I loved that this book was set in a journal format as it made it very quick and easy to read and would do well in the hands of a reluctant reader. 

Whilst this book was quite humorous, I don't think it was anywhere near as funny as was intended. 

Overall, this book does well at conveying serious issues in a very simplistic manner for children to understand and relate well to. 

Book Review #531 - The Notebook (The Notebook #1) by Nicholas Sparks

Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned form the Second World War. Noah is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories...until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.

Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. It is a story of miracles and emotions that will stay with you forever.

My Rating: 3/5

This was my first Nicholas Sparks novel. This book was completely different to what I had expected. I thought it was going to be sappy and over the top instead it too smart for that. 

The realness of the characters is what really propels this story. Noah was my favourite character as I felt like I understood him from the very start. Ali however, at times annoyed me as I felt like she thought she was too good for Noah. 

Overall, the romance didn't really bother me. If they hadn't have ended up together at the end of the book I don't think it would have bothered me at all but the character development was truly phenomenal and I am definitely going to be reading more of Nicholas Sparks. 

I know there is a sequel to this book, The Wedding. I will probably read it at some point in the future but as I am okay with how the book ended I'm not too bothered if I never read it. 

Book Review #502 - The Perfectionists (The Perfectionists #1) by Sara Shepard

In Beacon Heights High, Nolan Hotchkiss is king. His charm, wealth and good looks are deceptively seductive, and many are the students whose lives and reputations have been ruined by it. All while Nolan continues to reign, unquestioned and undisrupted. Until now, that is.

Mackenzie, Ava, Julie, Caitlin and Parker seemingly don't have much in common. Each has their own friends, dramas and goals. But one thing they do share: they all have a deep hatred of Nolan Hotchkiss. And they all think it's about time he paid for what he's done. They come up with the perfect murder - a hypothetical murder, of course. It's all wishful thinking ... until they wake up one morning to find that their wish has come true. Nolan has been killed - in exactly the way they planned. The thing is, they didn't do it. So who did?

My Rating: 3.5/5

I received this book for review from Five Mile Press. 

I was excited to read this book as I really enjoyed the Pretty Little Liars series. 

This book has the same format as PLL which at first I wasn't so sure of but it became better when it settled down into its own rhythm and style. 

Like with PLL, this book follows a group of teenage girls who are all equal narrators in the story. These characters were a lot more diverse and relatable than the ones in PLL which was definitely a positive. 

This book wasn't as fast paced as I had expected it to be although it did accelerate towards the end. 

Overall I am really pleased that Sara Shepard has decided to write another series. 

Book Review #478 - Where She Went (If I Stay #2) by Gayle Forman

If you had a second chance at first love... would you take it?

It's been three years since Adam's love saved Mia after the accident that annihilated life as she knew it... and three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.If you had a second chance at first love... would you take it?

It's been three years since Adam's love saved Mia after the accident that annihilated life as she knew it... and three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.

My Rating: 4/5

This is the sequel to If I Stay which I read and reviewed in 2011.

This book is told from Adam's perspective which I surprisingly preferred to that of Mia's in If I Stay.

Like with Mia in If I Stay, Adam's life is in complete disarray. However, it felt like Adam was more in tune with his emotions and delved a lot deeper into them than Mia.

Whilst in If I Stay, it is about Mia's relationships with the different members of her family and Adam, this book focuses primarily on Mia and Adam's relationship which was something that I enjoyed. 

This book is set three years after the accident and in all that time Adam hasn't seen Mia at all, not by his choosing. When they finally meet they both realise that whilst Mia may carry the physical scars of the accident, both of them carry the emotional ones. 

The first book is primarily set in the hospital so it was refreshing to see the characters in a much more normal and less stressful environment.  

Book Review #447 - The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

There are a lot of rumours about Alice Franklin, and it's stopped mattering whether any of them are true. 

It all started at a party, when Alice was supposedly with two guys in one night.

Soon everyone at Healy High has picked a side in this game of he said/she said. Do they believe Brandon Fitzsimmons, the most popular guy at school and the football hero of Healy? Or do they believe Alice, the girl who wears too-tight T-shirts and was caught kissing Brandon in a closet a couple years before?

When Brandon dies in a car crash, there are serious allegations that his death was Alice's fault. As the rumour mill spins into overdrive, Alice's small town becomes suffocating. And when the truth becomes a matter of opinion, something's got to give.

My Rating: 4/5

I received this book for review from Hardie Grant Egmont. 

This book is told from four characters perspectives and the only issue I had with this was that I thought the two females Kelsie and Elaine had very similar voices and I had a hard time telling them apart. 

Through the characters we are given Alice's story. I tried to keep an open mind throughout as I understood it was all second-hand information.

What I loved most about this book is that is showed how bullying and lying and spreading rumours for selfish reasons can really shape and influence other peoples lives.

Book Review #442 - Letters from the Inside by John Marsden

The relationship between two teenage girls who become acquainted through letters intensifies as their correspondence reveals some of the terrible problems of their lives.

My Rating: 3/5

I've lost track of the amount of John Marsden books that I have read, but they all seem to be of very high quality. 

This book tells the story of two girls from very different backgrounds who decide to be pen pals. 

The more the book progresses, the darker it gets and both girls begin to realize that their lives are more alike than they first imagined. 

This is a very character driven novel, and I felt like Tracey had a more dominant voice than Mandy. 

The ending was open to interpretation which is something that I really dislike in books.

Book Review #438 - Stolen: A Letter to my Captor by Lucy Christopher

Gemma, 16, is on layover at Bangkok Airport, en route with her parents to a vacation in Vietnam. She steps away for just a second, to get a cup of coffee. Ty - rugged, tan, too old, oddly familiar - pays for Gemma's drink. And drugs it. They talk. Their hands touch. And before Gemma knows what's happening, Ty takes her. Steals her away. The unknowing object of a long obsession, Gemma has been kidnapped by her stalker and brought to the desolate Australian Outback.

My Rating: 5/5

This is a very hard book to write a review about simply because my thoughts about it are all over the place. 

The plot was very unique, suspenseful and always engaging. This is my second Lucy Christopher book and I really love her writing style. 

What I loved most about this book is the way Gemma's narration plays with your head. Because she goes through Stockholm Syndrome, the reader does as well. 

Ty was a character that I loved whilst reading because he was so likeable and it was easy to feel sorry for him as he had such a certain vulnerability about him. 

I found that once I finished reading that I could see how what Ty did was so wrong and I found it a little scary that I wasn't able to think that clearly about him whilst reading. 

The setting of Australia was something that surprised me. I didn't expect to feel such an emotional connection with it. 

Not only is the book set for the most part in my country, it is also set in my state and at the very end it is set in my city so I found that really relateable in that regard. 

Book Review #420 - Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn’t have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn’t have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn’t have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her “Chief.” She’d know about her mom’s new family. She’d know about her dad’s fiancée. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn’t have wanted to kiss him back.
 

But Naomi picked heads.

My Rating: 4/5

After reading and enjoying All These Things I've Done last month I decided to read what many refer to as Gabrielle Zevin's best book.



Naomi was a character that was easy to relate to and fun to listen to. Even before her accident she was always thinking of the alternate lives she could have lead had she not been adopted by Americans. 


When Naomi awakens after diving down the stairs she discovers the last thing she remembers is being twelve years old. 


I felt like the story could have focused a little more on the things that Naomi had forgotten, like her parent's divorce and subsequent relationships with other people rather than Naomi's love life. 


I liked the wittiness of Will, but never saw him as anything other than Naomi's best friend.  


In a way her falling down the stairs was a positive for her as she got to reevaluate her life in ways that made her happier within herself.

Book Review #335 - Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup

Previously published as Q&A

A former tiffinboy from Mumbai, Ram Mohammad Thomas, has just got twelve questions correct on a TV quiz show to win a cool one billion rupees. But he is brutally slung in a prison cell on suspicion of cheating. Because how can a kid from the slums know who Shakespeare was, unless he has been pulling a fast one?

In the order of the questions on the show, Ram tells us which amazing adventures in his street-kid life taught him the answers. From orphanages to brothels, gangsters to beggar-masters, and into the homes of Bollywood's rich and famous, Slumdog Millionaire is brimming with the chaotic comedy, heart-stopping tragedy, and tear-inducing joyfulness of modern India.

 

 

My Rating: 4/5

 

 

Like most people who have read this book I had watched the movie first. I felt like that helped me a lot because the book is not written in any kind of order.

 

 

I felt like it was a pretty accurate portrayal of Indian culture. The only thing I found a little distracting was all the characters names were foreign and so they were hard to distinguish at times.

 

 

The whole idea of the game show was my favourite part about this book. It is a very unique and interesting story.

 

 

Even though it's predictable because you know from the start that he wins all the money, I really enjoyed the journey into his past as he explains how he knew each answer.

Book Review #302 - Twisted (Pretty Little Liars #9) by Sara Shepard

Four pretty girls have more ugly secrets than ever.

It's been a year since the mystery of their former friend's disappearance was finally laid to rest, and Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily have worked hard to put their lives back together. Now seniors in high school, the pretty little liars are older, but they're not any wiser.

Last spring break in Jamaica, they did something unforgivable. The girls are desperate to forget that fateful night, but I saw everything. And they should know by now that all secrets wash ashore . . . eventually.

 

 

My Rating: 4/5

 

 

It has been a while since I read the first eight books in this series but it didn't take me long to ease back into their world.

 

 

I still think the first four books in this series are by far the best but I did enjoy the others in the series.

 

 

I didn't feel as connected with the characters in this book, and I am not sure whether this was because I hadn't read the series for a while or because of the way it was written.

 

 

The plot was a lot different from the previous ones. There were a few twists along the way, but I thought that it was pretty straight forward compared to previous books.

Book Review #293 - Miracle by Elizabeth Scott

Megan survived the plane crash—but can she survive the aftermath? An intense, emotional novel from the author of The Unwritten Rule and Between Here and Forever.

Megan is a miracle. At least, that’s what everyone says. Having survived a plane crash that killed everyone else on board, Megan knows she should be grateful just to be alive. But the truth is, she doesn’t feel like a miracle. In fact, she doesn’t feel anything at all. Then memories from the crash start coming back.

Scared and alone, Megan doesn’t know whom to turn to. Her entire community seems unable—or maybe unwilling—to see her as anything but Miracle Megan. Everyone except for Joe, the beautiful boy next door with a tragic past and secrets of his own. All Megan wants is for her life to get back to normal, but the harder she tries to live up to everyone’s expectations, the worse she feels. And this time, she may be falling too fast to be saved....

 

 

My Rating: 3/5

 

 

This is the first book I have read written by Elizabeth Scott. From other reviews I have read on this book it seems her writing style takes time to get used to.

 

 

I really liked the premise for this book which is why I decided to read it.


I wanted to like Megan but overall I failed to connect with her as I found it really hard to understand her. I also found her parents really annoying. I didn't understand how they expected her to be the same after she suffered that much trauma.


Overall I thought that this book was a pretty accurate portrayal of someone stuggling with post traumatic stress disorder but I just felt like something was missing. 

Book Review #280 - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

Berlin 1942

When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.

But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

 

 

My Rating: 4/5

 

 

I knew very little about this book prior to reading which is probably the reason that I liked it as much as I did.

 

 

The best way to describe the protagonist Bruno is innocent. Through the entire book he is completely oblivious to the horrible world that he lives in.

 

 

The plot was rather simple but it has so much depth and is really beautifully written.

 

 

The ending is something that is probably going to stay with me for a very long time.