Author: Rach @ Anxious Nachos

Educational publisher, writer and cat mama.

Monthly wrap-up: May

Rach @ Anxious Nachos3 Comments

So May was a big month! I started a blog! I spent the first two weeks jetlagged! I spent 3 weeks with a constant headache! I fainted at the Doctor! And I bought and read a lot of books…

Books I read

I read 10 books this month, which I’m very happy with, especially considering I spent pretty much the entire month going to bed by 9pm because I was either extremely jetlagged or headachey or work stressed. Of those 10, I gave five of them a massive 5/5 stars! There were a few I wasn’t quite as happy with, but all in all, a very fun reading month.

The Poppy War – R.F. Kuang (5 out of 5 stars)

Other Words for Smoke – Sarah Maria Griffin (3.75 out of 5 stars)

Shadowscent – P.M. Freestone (3 out of 5 stars)

Rosewater – Tade Thompson (3 ou of 5 stars)

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers (5 out of 5 stars)

The Fever King – Victoria Lee (5 out of 5 stars)

Darius the Great is Not Okay – Adib Khorram (5 out of 5 stars)

Wicked Saints – Emily A. Duncan (4 out of 5 stars)

Love from A to Z – S.K. Ali (5 out of 5 stars)

We Hunt the Flame – Hafsah Faizal (4 out of 5 stars)

Books I bought

I had a great book buying month – a lot of books arrived that I am so excited to read. I also managed to read a fair few of those that arrived which was great!

I Wish You All the Best – Mason Deaver

We Hunt the Flame – Hafsah Faizal

Love from A to Z – S.K Ali

The Candle and the Flame – Nafiza Azad

Descendant of the Crane – Joan He

Wicked Saints – Emily A. Duncan

Darius the Great is Not Okay – Adib Khorram

Red, White & Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston

Her Royal Highness – Rachel Hawkins

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali – Sabina Khan

The Fever King – Victoria Lee

Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz – Ely Percy

Books I received

Convergence – Marita Smith (This was a book a lovely author I work with in my day job passed to me and I’m very excited to read! I’ve heard really great things about all the science in this book).

Shatter the Sky – Rebecca Kim Wells (Apparently the NetGalley gods were looking down on me for this one and I managed to snag an eARC of this incredible sounding book!)

What Makes Us – Rafi Mittlefehldt (Another NetGalley, my first approved request on NetGalley! I won’t lie, it was very much the cover which called to me. Rainbow + protest = my kind of book).

That’s it for my May wrap-up, let me know what you think about any of the books in this wrap-up!

Paws out,

Rach + Draco

Book review: The Fever King by Victoria Lee

Rach @ Anxious Nachos6 Comments

Title: The Fever King by Victoria Lee

Publisher: Skyscape

Publication date: 1 March 2019

Genre: Fantasy | Young Adult | A little science thrown in for good measure

Page count: 375pages

Rating: 5 out of 5 GLORIOUS stars

Synopsis: In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

Despite having only just started this blog, I think this will still be the third time I’ve mentioned The Fever King, because it is incredible. It’s my favourite book of the year so far, it may even be my favourite book ever and I just cannot explain how much I want you to read this.

This book blends science and magic into one unique package: magic is caused by a virus. A virus which just so happens to kill the majority of people who catch it. Those who survive are called witchings, capable of wielding magic. Each witching has a presenting power – these powers are hugely varying from healing to technopathy. But it isn’t quite that easy. Magic is hard. It requires an understanding of the science behind it to wield it effectively. Noam, an immigrant in the nation of Carolinia, has survived the virus and awoken with the power of technopathy. Trying to take down the regime from inside, Noam accepts the minister of defence, Calix Leher’s, invitation to study and learn the science. So Noam ends up under the tutelage of Leher, one of the most powerful men in the country, living with 4 other trainees in the ministry complex.

As Noam trains, he becomes deeper and deeper involved in the fight against the government, and closer and closer to Dara, Minister Leher’s adopted son. Dara and Noam’s relationship is so beautifully and heartbreakingly written. They both have been hurt so badly and yet are so protective of each other, I love every page with them interacting. I did reread the book before I wrote this review, and reading it the second time, knowing what you do about the ending, it really does make their relationship even more intense and beautiful. Their is definitely no instalove here, I really enjoyed the slow development of their relationship. One of my biggest YA pet peeves is instalove, I can just never get onboard, but in The Fever King, the romance is much more developed and it’s really lovely to watch how Dara and Noam’s behaviour changes as they become friends.

Whilst Dara was my favourite character, I very much related to Noam. There were some passages I found very difficult to read because of how much I have felt like he did. These boys are just ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

The book deals with some very difficult subject matter – Victoria has a full list of trigger warnings here. The way the story unravels, as you slowly become more and more uneasy about certain characters, feel terrible for liking some of them to start with, slowly fall in love with others, and then get shot through the heart a million times, is just amazing. I found the development of Leher particularly fascinating – he’s such an interesting and complex character and one you’re never quite sure about. Pay attention to the archive extracts which talk about Leher’s previous rise to power, it’s really interesting to re-read these knowing the ending and spot all the things you didn’t notice before.

This is a very difficult book to review without giving too much away because there are some really big revelations throughout the book which drastically alter what I can talk about. All I can really say is that I was absolutely enthalled from the first to the last page, and I want nothing more than to give these boys a farm and some goats.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeead it.

Paws out,

Rach + Draco

TBR….PRIDE MONTH!!!!

Rach @ Anxious Nachos2 Comments

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈 ITS PRIIIIDEEEEEEEE…..for like countries other than Australia where I currently reside.

But as I am Scottish, I am celebrating pride this month with a TBR filled with fierce, queer novels and I cannot wait to get into this list!! Because whilst I try to read awesome queer books all year round, June is a month where I plan on reading nothing but awesome queer books!

There are a wonderful 15 books I am trying to get through this month – which is a pretty big ask for me, but there’s a public holiday in June + a few of these have a low-ish page extent so I’m hopeful this is achievable. And for once I am going to be optimistic and so I’ve also made a back up TBR in case I get through all of these.

The list

I Wish You All the Best – Mason Deaver

Featuring non-binary teen who’s parents kick them out

Red, White & Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston

Featuring a romance between The Prince of Wales and the First Son of the United States

Her Royal Highness – Rachel Hawkins

Featuring another gay royal – this time a Scottish princess

Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz – Ely Percy

Featuring a butch lesbian and 2001 Glasgow!

Shatter the Sky – Rebecca Kim Wells

Featuring Dragons and a sapphic romance

Missing, Presumed Dead – Emma Berquist

Featuring a sapphic relationship with a ghost

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali – Sabina Khan

Featuring a queer Muslim girl who’s parents are trying to arrange a marriage for her

Girls of Paper and Fire – Natasha Ngan

Featuring more sapphic girls

Keep This To Yourself – Tom Ryan

Featuring a boy coming to terms with his feelings for his murdered best friend

Deposing Nathan – Zack Smedley

Featuring a raised-Christian queer boy and the boy who stabbed him

We Are Okay – Nina Lacour

Featuring sadness and lonliness but knowing it will be okay

You Asked For Perfect – Laura Silverman

Featuring the character I will probably most relate to of any book ever – the most Virgo of all Virgos, a boy who needs to be perfect but fails a test

They Both Die At The End – Adam Silvera

At least I know how’ll it end right?

Birthday – Meredith Russo

Visits to best friends each year on their birthday as one comes to terms that they are living as the wrong gender

The Wicker King – K. Ancrum

Mental illness + queer boys = good book

My back up list

My back up list consists of a few reads I’ve had sitting on my shelf for a while now and just never seem to get a chance to read! Pride month seems like the perfect time to hit some of these!

The Luminous Dead – Caitlin Starling

More queer women

Reign of the Fallen – Sarah Glenn Marsh

I think this is the only book with a bi character on my list – which is so terrible?!

Call Me By Your Name – André Aciman

Definitely an icon in the queer lit field that I still haven’t read

And that’s my TBR for Pride month! Let me know what you’re planning to read this month 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Paws out,
Rach + Draco

Book review: Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

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Title: Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Publisher: Dial Books

Publication date: 28 August 2018

Genre: Contemporary | Young adult

Page count: 316 pages

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it’s pretty overwhelming–especially when he’s also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his ailing but still formidable grandfather, his loving grandmother, and the rest of his mom’s family for the first time. And he meets Sohrab, the boy next door who changes everything.

Sohrab makes sure people speak English so Darius can understand what’s going on. He gets Darius an Iranian National Football Team jersey that makes him feel like a True Persian for the first time. And he understands that sometimes, best friends don’t have to talk. Darius has never had a true friend before, but now he’s spending his days with Sohrab playing soccer, eating rosewater ice cream, and sitting together for hours in their special place, a rooftop overlooking the Yazdi skyline.

Sohrab calls him Darioush–the original Persian version of his name–and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab. When it’s time to go home to America, he’ll have to find a way to be Darioush on his own.

This book. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Okay more words. This book is an absolutely stunning portrayal of the struggles of living with depression. I’ve so rarely seen such an incredible portrayal of mental illness, and I cannot express enough how much books like this are needed.

Darius is a nerdy, half-Persian guy who just so happens to have depression. Like his dad. He’s lonely and bullied at his school by your regular Jock Type asshats. But on a trip to Iran, to visit his ailing grandfather, he finds something he’s never had before: a best friend.

The book takes place over just a few weeks of time, as Darius connects with his family in Iran and learns more about his hertiage. We see him struggle to understand how he fits in, both in the US and in Iran. Across the book, Sohrab, a boy from along the street, helps Darius realise he does belong and doesn’t have to change. We see his relationship with his family change, as he grows further apart from the father who struggles to show his love, also living with depression on a daily basis.

“Suicide isn’t the only way you can lose someone to depression.”

This novel is a heartrenching tale of family and friendship and the difficulty of life. Darius is just such a beautiful character. The book is written from Darius’ POV and we see him struggling with his depression, struggling to fit it, struggling to love his father, struggling to find anything good about himself at all, and into this struggle comes Sohrab, a boy who lives near his grandparents in Iran. Sohrab is different from anyone Darius has met before, because Sohrab seems to understand. Sohrab doesn’t ask him to be someone he’s not, and doesn’t ask him to change or hide his illness. Instead, he is there, and he is the best friend Darius has ever had. Sohrab too is struggling, with an absent father, and we see Darius so unsure, wanting to help and support his friend like Sohrab supports him, but just not knowing what to do.

This book is just so clear and strong in the portray of depression. We need books like this. We need to see how depressions affects those around us, how we can help. To read a book like this, one that feels so familiar that it physically hurts, one you can see how much of yourself in, it’s just incredible and I don’t think I can ever thank Adib enough for writing a book so genuine and honest. Was it difficult to read? Yes. It was confronting to see so much of myself in this book. But it was worth it.

Also, as you may have read in a previous review of mine, I love every book which can make me cry on public transport. So hell yeah to this book – it’s an essential book to read for anyone who wants to know more about depression or how to support those who live with depression.

Paws out,
Rach + Draco

Top 5 Tuesday: Summertime reads

Rach @ Anxious Nachos5 Comments

So this week I found out about Top 5 Tuesdays, a weekly blog topic run by Bionic Book Worm. So I decided to join in! You can find Bionic Book Worm and join the fun by checking out the topics for the month here.

This week’s topic is Summertime Reads! As it’s going into Winter here in Australia, it’s been a while since I’ve read something summery, but here goes…

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

I bought this book for a summer trip to Thailand a year ago. I started on the plane and just couldn’t put it down, got no sleep, and managed to complete it before the plane touched down. It was magnificent! Such a wonderful and bittersweet story about an old Hollywood starlet and the love(s) of her life.

The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

This was another I read in Thailand and was such an uplifting and happy read – perfect for summer! It tells the story of Don Tillman, a man with Aspergers who tries to find the perfect partner for himself by creating The Wife Project, a questionnaire designed to find the perfect partner. In the process, he finds out a lot about love and it’s such a fun read.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue – Mackenzi Lee

This is one one of the funnest books I’ve read all year – I was so incredibly happy reading it. I absolutely loved all of the characters, it had the perfect amount of romance, drama and adventure for summer!

The Quiet at the End of the World – Lauren James

This is such a lovely little book – it is the perfect book for summer. It features a beautiful friendship between the two youngest humans on Earth, as they watch the world slowly end. There are lots of twists and turns, and whilst I didn’t expect the ending (and at the time wished it had been a bit less happy – I’m a killer for a book that hurts me), it’s definitely a book for a chilled, summer read.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles – Hiro Arikawa

This book is definitely a tearjerker but I think it has a really lovely message, and feels very summery to me. It tells the story from the point of view of a cat, Nana, and his owner, Satoru, as Satoru tries to find someone to look after Nana – though we don’t know the reason why. As a cat owner, this was so hard to read as Nana was so confused about why Satoru would want to give him away and it was just so so beautiful and sad and wonderful.

Paws out,

Rach + Draco

Book review: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Rach @ Anxious Nachos1 Comment

Title: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Publisher:  Hodder & Stoughton

Publication date: 13 August 2015

Genre: Science fiction | Adult

Page count: 404 pages

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

Oh my gosh I cannot even begin to put into words how much I adored this book and every single character in it. I didn’t think I could ever read another sci-fi book I loved as much as Do You Dream of Terra-Two, let alone read one just a few weeks later which is just as good, if not better.

I’m sure most of you reading this are probably already aware of Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series. Becky first self-published and was then picked up by a traditional publisher, with A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet being republished in 2015. This was another book I picked up during my time in the UK and since I’ve really been enjoying sci-fi recently, I definitely wanted something like this to pick me back up after finishing the not-so-lighthearted Rosewater.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet follows the spaceship Wayfarer, a tunnelling ship which travels space and ‘punches’ holes to create tunnels for other ships to travel along. ALWTOSAP is set in the future, after humans have had to leave Earth and take to the skies. As they travelled across the universe to find a place to live, they met other species living in the universe, joining the Galactic Commons.

The crew of the Wayfarer are a mixed-species group of indviduals who create ‘tunnels’ between one point in space and another, allowing for quick travel between two locations. The ship has been hired to go into a warzone to create a tunnel near a planet belonging to the newly-allied species, the Toremi. And so begins the journey.

Whilst there is action and twists and unbearbly heartbreaking scenes, what really shines in this book are the characters. I love each and every one of them, from Ashby, the human captain, to Rosemary, the young, inexperienced clerk escaping from her past on Mars, to Corbin, the grumpy and kind-of-a-jerk human who ended up being one of my favourites as you see him change and grow across the series. This crew is a family, and there is so much love for each other, and it is at no point clearer than when we see Corbin’s actions at the end of the novel. I did of course have my favourites – SISSIX. Oh I could talk about her for hours. She was such a beautifully written character, and as an Aandrisk, a reptilian-like species, it was so interesting to read about the different social interactions she had compared to the humans. It really broke my heart when it was revealed how much she hurt when she held herself back from interacting with the crew as she wanted to, for fear of alienating them with her different social behaviours. She was such a loving and caring character and she was my favourite from the very first time she’s introduced.

I was also a huge fan of Lovey, the ship’s AI, and their relationship with Jenks, one of the ships techs. Without giving too much away, it was very clear how much they meant to each other and it was so realistic to me, as I can really see this happening in the future once our current AI technology develops.

Seeing all the different species described was definitely a highlight for me, I loved hearing about Dr Chef and his homeworld, as well as seeing the Sianat Pairs. This book was just a brilliant mesh of characters and species and was such a heartwarming tale about how a group of hugely different individuals become a family. It was so much fun to read and I cannot wait to continue the series!

Paws out,

Rach + Draco

Book review: Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Rach @ Anxious Nachos2 Comments
SUCH A PRETTY COVER

Title: Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Publisher:  Orbit

Publication date: 18 Sept 2018

Genre: Science fiction | Adult

Page count: 432 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis:

Tade Thompson’s Rosewater is the start of an award-winning, cutting edge trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction’s most engaging new voices.

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless—people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn’t care to again—but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.

I picked up Rosewater when I was in a bookshop in the UK, mainly because I kept spotting the gorgeous cover and figured it was defintely time to read it. Kaaro lives in Rosewater, a city which has grown up around an alien biodome, a dome no one can get in or out of, but that once a year ‘opens’ and everyone is miraculosuly healed of illness/injuries. There, he lives his normal daily life, working at a bank, but also secretly works for the government as well. Rosewater opens in a scene with one of the most interesting technologies I’ve seen in any science fiction. Karro is a sensitive – someone who can read thoughts. Alongside some other sensitives, he works at a bank to prevent hacking attacks. You see sensitives can access a layer of reality which Kaaro refers to as the xenophere. It’s the place where all thoughts go to – including things like passwords and pin codes. The bank hires Kaaro to flood the xenophere with unrelated information by reading classics, which then blocks the hackers from seeing passwords and codes in the bank’s customers’ minds.

IS THAT NOT SO COOL?!

The novel follows Kaaro across three different stages of his life, the past, ‘interlude missions’ and the present (2066). In the present day, Kaaro is trying to discover why people like him, sensitives, are dying. In the past, we see Kaaro as a young man as he is discovered as a sensitive and is forced to work for the government. And then in the interlude missions, we see him participating in what seems like unrelated missions, but which do all come together in the end. The three different timelines were a little confusing – particularly because each chapter was so short that the story was constantly jumping in and out of different storylines. I did really like how Tade created the different voices of Kaaro as he grows – it’s really interesting to read the different voices and see how the events happening in the past and interlude missions have really affected present day Kaaro.

Kaaro is an interesting character, but he definitely isn’t one I’m particularly drawn to. He’s not the nicest person, and I really disliked his treatment of women in the book. We get constant objectification and they don’t really do much except sleep with Kaaro. I get that it very much fits the character, who isn’t a very nice person, but it just isn’t something I’m particularly keen on reading. I was much more interested in Aminat, Kaaro’s girlfriend who seems very level headed and kick ass. She doesn’t feature much in this book (other than as someone Kaaro can sleep with), but I’ve heard she does in the sequel so I’m interested to read that and find out more about her. I also found her brother very interesting – I’m definitely intrigued to see if he reappears in the sequel.

I loved the setting, 2066 Nigeria, and particularly liked hearing the insights about what happened to other countries in the wake of the alien biodome emerging. There were a few cheeky political insights about current times, such as Brexit, Trump, and my personal favourite, about the UK fighting to keep Scotland.

All in all, I liked this book, but there were some aspects of content I really did not gel with. I also struggled to read it because of the complicated timelines and so it took me a while to read. But, this book has some super interesting technology and aliens and I definitely will be picking up the sequel to find out more about Aminat.

Book review: The Darkest Bloom by P.M. Freestone

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The Darkest Bloom by P.M. Freestone

Title: The Darkest Bloom (Shadowscent #1) by P.M. Freestone

Publisher:  Scholastic

Publication date: 7 February 2019

Genre: Fantasy | Young Adult

Page count: 448 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: In the empire of Aramtesh, scent has power. When disaster strikes and the crown prince lies poisoned, long suppressed rivalries threaten to blow the empire apart. It’s up to a poor village girl with a talent for fragrances and the prince’s loyal bodyguard to find an antidote. To succeed, the pair must uncover secrets – cryptic, ancient tales as well as buried truths from their own pasts – in an adventure that will ignite your senses.

I really wanted to absolutely love this book. It had such an interesting premise – scent has power?! It sounded so different and such a different magic system that I really wanted this to be great. However, whilst I enjoyed reading this, it did fall a little flat and lacked depth for me. All in all, it’s an easy, enjoyable read but one which lacked something for me.

Rakel is a girl from a poor village; her father has ‘The Rot’, an incurable illness reminiscent of the Plague. In order to find the money for medicine which will slow the illness, Rakel enters a perfumer’s competion for which the winner will receive an apprenticeship at the city’s perfumer.

Ash is the crown prince’s bodyguard. He accompanies the prince across Aramtesh to visit his uncle, only when they reach their destination, the prince ends up poisoned. Ash teams up with Rakel to follow an ancient quest to reach a hidden library, where they hope a cure will be found for the prince. Adventure ensues and the two find themselves encountering problem after problem.

The book is split into two POVs, Rakel’s and Ash. The two are together for the majority of the novel so each section of POV starts immediately as the other one ends. I’m not sure I enjoyed this POV swapping, I think it would have read better following just one POV as there was very little left to guess or interpret as we had insight into both their thoughts on everything. The Darkest Bloom is enjoyable but just lacked the depth and description needed to really hook me. There was nothing unexpected about how the plot plays out. At times, it felt very ‘then this magically happened’ with very little explanation about how everything fell into the right place all the time. It just felt a little too easy. They wasn’t a huge sense of urgency throughout the book, despite the fact they were being chased, so I didn’t feel hugely emotionally involved in any of the drama.

In saying that, I did like all of the characters. Rakel is a good female lead, she felt realistic and I liked how stubborn she was. I also liked Ash, particularly his relationship with Prince Nisai. Prince Nisai was definitely my favourite character though. From his short time on page before being poisoned, you could really see why Ash was so devoted to him.

I also really wasn’t feeling the romance. It felt very sudden, half way through the quest they suddenly were in love and I just didn’t feel the chemistry between Ash and Rakel.

Although it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, I did really enjoy the scent based magic. It’s such an interesting creation – Rakel has such a powerful nose that she can work out ingrediants in potions and drinks, even identifying poisons. I really enjoyed all the descriptions of smells throughout the book as well. As we follow Rakel’s POV for half the book, there is quite a lot of it and it works really well.

All in all, I was disappointed the premise didn’t play out as I imagined, but it was a quick, enjoyable read, and I will likely pick up the sequel when it is released next year.

Paws out,

Rach + Draco

Book review: Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin

Rach @ Anxious Nachos2 Comments
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Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin

Title: Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin

Publisher:  Titan Books

Publication date: 2 April 2019

Genre: Fantasy | Paranormal | Young Adult

Page count: 336 pages

Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: The house at the end of the lane burned down, and Rita Frost and her teenage ward, Bevan, were never seen again. The townspeople never learned what happened. Only Mae and her brother Rossa know the truth; they spent two summers with Rita and Bevan, two of the strangest summers of their lives… Because nothing in that house was as it seemed: a cat who was more than a cat, and a dark power called Sweet James that lurked behind the wallpaper, enthralling Bevan with whispers of neon magic and escape. And in the summer heat, Mae became equally as enthralled with Bevan. Desperately in the grips of first love, she’d give the other girl anything. A dangerous offer when all that Sweet James desired was a taste of new flesh…

Other Words for Smoke is a delightfully creepy and haunting tale about a haunted house in Ireland and a cat who isn’t really a cat, which in my opinion, sells this book more than any words in my review ever could.

Twins Mae and Rossa are sent to live with their great Aunt Rita during their parent’s slow relationship breakdown. There, they meet Bevan, an older teen that Rita took in after Bevan’s mum dissappeared. Bevan is seemingly in the thrall of a paranormal being, who lives in the walls of her room – Sweet James. The book tells the tale of Sweet James’ creeping influence over the household and his attempts to tempt and ‘eat’ various members of the house.

Other Words for Smoke is very different to the books I normally read – I usually stay as far away from paranormal books as I can as they really scare me, but I picked this up after hearing lots of people talking about in on my Twitter feed and then seeing the stunning cover in the bookshop. It’s told from three POVs, Mae, Rossa and Bevan. Bevan’s POV is definitely the most interesting, it’s told in the second tense, as if Sweet James is talking about her. It is fantastically creepy and you can really see the insidious way that Sweet James’ influence comes over her. Rossa was my least favourite – though in saying that, he really did feel very realistic, I just really didn’t like him as a person, he felt quite self-centred and didn’t seem to care much for his twin.

Obviously, I do have a special mention for Bobby the cat, the cat who’s not quite a cat. I won’t give anything away, but I really feel that more books should have a cat like this because it would make all my dreams come true.

The book has a very lyrical and other-wordly quality to the writing, it feels very fairytale-esque which I love, and it really fits the setting of the book, in this small, country town in Ireland. I did enjoy the second half of the book more, I felt the characters were much more relatable in the second half when they have aged a few years. I really enjoyed seeing the characters grow up and seeing how they developed and changed after the events in the first half of the book. The pace during the first half did also feel a little slow for me, but it did fit the style of the story well.

All in all, this book was a really delightful find, and I think Sarah Maria Griffin really needs some kind of reward for making me almost pass out on a tram when I was commuting home from work one day due to a certain ear piercing scene. I am very glad I picked up this book, and if you’re looking for a creepy fairytale-esque story with a coming of age feel, definitely try this book!

Paws out x

OWLs readathon wrap-up

Rach @ Anxious Nachos1 Comment

Happy weekend everyone!

Last month, I participated in my first ever readathon, and what a way to start! This was the OWLs readathon, run by @MagicalReadthn. This readathon is based on the Harry Potter series, and the exams you sit at Hogwarts. It happens twice a year, OWLs in April and NEWTs in August.

For each subject ‘exam’, there is a reading prompt; you read a book following the prompt, you pass the exam. In addition, there was an amazing list of careers designed with qualifications you are required to get for each career in the Harry Potter world. As I was visiting family in Scotland for most of April and didn’t have a huge amount of time for reading, I decided to go for a career which didn’t have a huge list of subjects to study for and that was….Librarian!

For the Librarian career, I needed to sit Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Defence Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic and Transfigurations. I managed to complete a prompt for all of these, plus a bonus exam, Potions (because I am a Slytherin at heart).

My reads:

Ancient Runes prompt: A retelling

For this I read the amazing A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. This is a fantastic retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The two main characters are so well written. Prince Rhen was put under a curse so that he turns into a terrible monster each season. Harper, a girl with
cerebral palsy, finds herself kidnapped from her world (our world) and taken to Rhen’s realm, so he can try to make her fall in love him. Rhen is written absolutely brilliantly, he suffers so much pain at seeing the damage he has wrought on his empire when he turns into the beast. Then there’s Harper who is such a strong, female character, who won’t tolerate Rhen’s attempts to make her fall in love – instead she wants to take on the witch who put the curse on him. This is such a great read, a shout out needs to go to Gray as well, Rhen’s bodyguard. I’d love another book telling his story. Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Arithmancy prompt: a work written by two or more authors

For this prompt, I chose Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman, after a number of recommendations on Twitter. This is a very interesting read, I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s a sci-fi YA novel written entirely from instant messages, email transcripts, video recordings, military transcipts and more. It did take me a while to get into the style, but once the story started ramping up, it was a really good read. There were so many twists and turns and I was guessing right until the end. I loved the growth of the relationship between the two main characters as well. I do recommend not reading this one on an e-reader though, as it seemed to mess up a lot of the formatting. Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Defence Against the Dark Arts prompt: Reducto – title starts with ‘R’

For DADA, I went with The Raven Tower, one of the few hard copy books I took over to Scotland for my visit. I forced myself through car sickness to continue reading this which I think says a lot about how great it was. The Raven Tower is a fantasy novel about gods and birds and rocks and honestly, it is so damn good. It’s told in the second person which is SO effective. It follows two different timelines, one with the narrator telling us about how the world began, and the other following a character called Eolo as they try to work out who killed the previous ruler. Another fantastic read! Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars

History of Magic prompt: published 10 or more years ago

For HoM, my mum recommended a short novella she’d read recently, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. This was very different to my usual reads, but was a really haunting and creepy tale about two sisters. I didn’t quite connect with this book because I just couldn’t find anything redeemable about any of the characters, I found them all rather awful people. But the setting and atmosphere of the book is deliciously weird and wonderful. Final rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Transfigurations prompt: sprayed edges or red cover

Whilst I was in Scotland, I spotted Eve of Man by Giovanna and Tom Fletcher on a shelf because the cover was GLOWING. It’s a shiny gold, checkered pattern with black sprayed edges and it just looked amazing. The premise for this sounded so up my street, girls stop being born and humanity pretty much breaks down. Until, one day, 50 years since the last girl was born, another is born. She is called Eve. We follow Eve as she begins to be ‘matched’ with a series of boys to begin procreating. I thought this would be a really great, Handmaids Tale-esque book, but instead I was really disappointed. The characters had no depth for me and I just couldn’t really root for any of them. The pacing of the book felt off, it’s very slow to start with no action until the later half of the book and the romance felt very lacking. I know there are lots of people who have really enjoyed this book though, so do give it a try! Final rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Potions prompt: sequel

For Potions, I did slightly bend the rules – they asked for a sequel, and I went with Before Mars by Emma Newman, which whilst set in the same universe as her other books, isn’t technically a ‘sequel’. This was my first foray into Emma’s work, and I am so glad I chose to jump into her world. Before Mars is absolutely amazing, it’s the third in her Planetfall series, a series of four novels set around space travel. Before Mars follows Anna as she travels to Mars, seemingly to paint on the planet for her wealthy employer. When she gets there however, she finds a note warning her about another member of the crew…in her own handwriting. This is a beautifully descriptive, psychological sci-fi novel. The book is very emotive, I really liked Anna as a character as she battles trying to work out if she’s crazy or if there is something wrong. The mental health representation was done so realistically and was written so well, and I know this is something Emma writes about quite a lot so I can’t wait to read the other novels in this series. Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars

And that’s it for the OWLs readathon wrap-up. This readathon is back in August, where I will be studying for my Librarian NEWTs. Let me know if any of these books are on your TBR!

Paws out from Draco and I