Always Buy The Book

My Favourite Fictional Mums Today is Mother's Day in the UK. It's one of my favourite days of the year, because I get to show my mum how much she means to me. But it's not only my mum who's awesome. Female characters in books still aren't celebrated as much as they should be, particularly not older ones. So this post is my tribute to all my favourite fictional mothers, all of whom nearly match up to my own mum, and all of whom are badass in their own ways. (Be aware of spoilers!) 1. Molly Weasley- The Harry Potter s eries by J.K. Rowling.  Molly has stuck in my mind for a long time because she proves that women have the capacity to both love and be ferociously protective. She manages to bring up seven children and still have the energy to adopt an eighth and love him as fiercely as her own children. And all of those children know that their mother would do anything for them, as she proves in the Battle of Hogwarts.  2. Sally Jackson- The  Percy Jackson ...

The Adamantine Palace- review Stephen Deas Rating: 3/5 The short version: Not a bad read, but not one to go back to either. This review will contain spoilers. There’s nothing wrong with The Adamantine Palace, but unfortunately there was very little that struck me as particularly good, either. Some of the characters and premises were intriguing, but they were let down by a plot which went backwards a little too often and characters who didn’t leave an impact on me. More than anything else, there was little to distinguish this book from other fantasies. The book begins with the assassination of a queen, setting up the tangle of political intrigue which is the spine of the plot. From here, there are two halves to the plot. Several different monarchs are aiming for power, whilst away from the palaces the dragons they have enslaved are beginning to wreak their revenge. There are a lot of different POV characters in this book, which means that the reader has to k...

Book of the Month February 2018 My dad spent ages trying to get me to read Terry Pratchett, and I'm really glad he finally managed it. Guards! Guards!  has become one of my particular favourites so far, and it was absolutely hilarious. There's a lot to love- the inept City Watch, the rather unique dragons, and the hopeless villains. Here are my highlights! Obviously, watch out for spoilers. Favourite character : Carrot Ironfoundersson. I can only think of a few characters I like, in anything, who insist on sticking to the rules, but part of Carrot's charm is that he is unaware of how much of an irritant he is. That makes him funny, and true, he's a huge part of the comedy of the book. But he's my favourite character of this book because his cluelessness makes him utterly endearing, at least to me. And his enthusiasm is never dented no matter what happens to him. The world needs more people like Carrot. Best quote : "Killed by a metaphor....

Books With Good Film Adaptations Photo by Pietro Jeng from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/curve-industry-photography-vintage-65128/ First of all, apologies for not posting on Wednesday! I had an essay to write which took me longer than expected. I'm going to take this as an opportunity to get ahead with my schedule so that (hopefully) it doesn't happen again, and a review will be posted as normal this Wednesday. I will also be posting my book of the month tomorrow! You might also have noticed that the theme of the blog has changed- a good friend of mine pointed out that my comments weren't working, so I've changed my theme to solve the problem.  Now, tonight the Oscars are happening in America! I thought this was a good opportunity to showcase books I think have had good film adaptations, because the good ones are rare enough that they deserve to be credited. Plus, I've found that I can enjoy good movies as much as the books they're based on,...

Characters who deserved better On Friday a character in The Archers (for anyone who doesn't know, that's a British radio show) was killed off out of the blue. I've spent the whole weekend coming to terms with it and I'm still not over it. So to keep myself distracted I thought I'd come up with a list of other characters I think have been treated  unfairly by their books! These are characters who either died before they should have or just had harder lives than they deserved. Obviously, there will be spoilers for several books- I'll list the books' names with the characters, so avoid them if you haven't read them! 1. Remus Lupin- The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling When I was coming up with this list, Harry Potter was one of the first series I thought about. I could have chosen quite a few characters from the series- actually, it could merit a list by itself. But the death that was the most heartbreaking for me was Remus Lupin. Not only d...

The Book Thief- review Markus Zusak Rating: 4/5 The short version: A book which completely deserves its reputation. This review will contain spoilers. I appreciate that if you haven’t read this book already, you’ll probably have heard a lot about it anyway. I also know that there are a lot of books about WWII, and it is easy to get fed up of them. So I am going to   try and explain why you should read this book anyway. If you have somehow never heard of The Book Thief, it’s about Liesel, a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany, and the humanity she experiences along the way. Her books take on an emotional significance to her life, and she also becomes friends with a fugitive Jew. It’s also narrated by Death. That should tell you quite a lot about the book; it’s creative, but in no way cheerful. For me, one of the most refreshing things about this book was its focus on the ordinary people of Germany who suffered because of the war. Liesel is blonde-hair...

Favourite Character Feature February 2018 Hi, everyone! This is the first of a monthly feature, where I'm going to talk about my favourite fictional characters. I want to focus on characters who are from lesser-known books, or have smaller parts in their novels. So on Wednesday, I reviewed The Next Together by Lauren James ( here !). The character I'm talking about this month is from that book's sequel, The Last Beginning. Her name is Ella, and she is very mysterious and a lot of fun to read about.  There are spoilers ahead, so don't read if you don't want the book ruined for you! Okay. Here, I have to admit that I am a tiny bit biased. I loved Ella before I even read the book, because she shares my name and she's gay. Those are both, unfortunately, pretty rare things in most books. But there were plenty of reasons for me to fall in love with her throughout the book.  She is a huge fangirl. Throughout the book, we get little glimpses of Ell...