Fall Into Reading | Read-a-thon

Hey guys,

So this is my first attempt at participating in a read-a-thon! I'm really excited :) If you want to join, click on the banner and it will take you to the host website!

I want to read 2 books, 4 graphic novels. I will try and push it to 3 books, but with school and everything, I don't know if it'll be possible. I will try though!

I plan on reading:

1. Carnival by Rawi Hage
2. Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso
3. 100 pages of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (so I can make my video on Friday)

I don't know what the graphic novels will be yet because I need to go to the library :p

You can follow me on goodreads and twitter where I'll try to update a lot!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Review | Fallout

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins is the third and final instalment of the Crank trilogy. I started the series about 5 years ago, and decided it was about time I read the last book. I was a huge fan of the first ones (Crank and Glass) and I really wasn't disappointed with Fallout.

In this last book, the story isn't focused on Kristina, but on her 3 oldest children and how their lives have been affected by their mother's relationship with the monster.

We first get to know Hunter, the eldest of her children. When he was a baby, Kristina's parents decided to adopt him because she clearly wasn't able to take care of him. Hunter is now 18, is in a serious relationship, works part-time at a radio station and goes to college. 

We then meet Autumn, Kristina's eldest daughter. She's 17, and has OCD. When her dad went to jail, her aunt and grandpa took her in and they were very careful and made sure her parents (or other family) would never find her. 

And then we get introduced to Summer, 15. She suffers from severe asthmas due to her mother using while she was pregnant. She's been from one foster family to another for most of her life, taken away from her grandparents when they got "too old". 

                    

These kids have nothing in common except for an irresponsible mother and a predisposition to substance abuse. Wherever Kristina goes, she brings drama, and this year at Christmas is no different. In this last novel, unrelated events bring everyone together in what seems to be like a path towards change and recovery. 

Once again, the author totally blew my mind away. Ellen Hopkins has a gift when it comes to writing contemporary young adult fiction that’s for sure.

It was really nice to take the focus off Kristina and have her children on the spotlight. To see drug addiction from a child’s point of you and how it doesn't only affect the user’s life.

All the characters felt real, and it’s very easy to relate to them. That’s one thing I've always liked about her books.

“It's just so hard to feel good, you know?" I do know. And more than that, it's just so incredibly hard to feel.”

I really can’t say anything bad about this book, but I wish I could have more. I want to know what happened to each one of the children. I really want them to be okay, to have a great future.

Hopkins has a very unique way of writing her books, and I really like it. You can easily get sucked in and read it all in one sitting. Fallout is really not a hard read, but it’s very emotional. It’s difficult to be indifferent to the characters.

I really recommend this book (the series) if you like YA novels. Or even if you don’t! It’s just one of these books!

My Rating: 

You can get a copy HERE

Have you read any Ellen Hopkins? Which one is your favourite?

Review | Uglies

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is a dystopian novel for young adults. I went into this book with high expectations, and to my surprise I wasn’t too disappointed!

Tally is a few months away from turning sixteen and she cannot wait. Not only will she finally be reunited with her best friend Peris, but she will finally get to be pretty. In her world, everyone undergoes surgery at the age of sixteen and they can move to New Pretty Town. 

In this part of the city, everyone is always having fun and they all look stunning. Everybody is the same and everybody is happy, but at what cost?

Tally meets Shay, another Ugly who’s waiting to turn sixteen. Both being the youngest of their group of friends, they quickly become really close. Shay brings Tally outside of the city where she wants to show her another completely different way of living. 

“Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.”

Shay doesn’t want to be pretty, and she decides to run away. Tally isn’t convinced and stays behind. 

On her sixteen birthday, Tally is brought to the Special Circumstances quarters, where she is given an ultimatum: either she helps them find this mysterious and “dangerous” city where Shay is hidden or she stays ugly forever. 

Torn between betraying her friend and turning pretty, Tally is pressured into a journey that will completely shift her view of the city.

This was my first book by Scott Westerfeld, so I didn’t have anything to compare Uglies with. I had heard a lot of good things about the book (a lot of booktubers also raved about it) and I decided it was time I picked it up to see what it was all about. 

When I first picked it up, I really wasn’t sure if I was going to like it because the writing felt really childish and I had a hard time getting into it. I felt rushed into the story, but I found myself slowly getting used to it. 

The book is really fast paced and I never felt like it was dragging. I read half of it in one sitting. I loved how we got to see how the runaways live. The back story of how they ended up in Pretty cities makes a lot of sense. 

This might sound weird, but when Shay was explaining to Tally why becoming a Pretty and the way they were living isn’t right reminded me of conversations I’ve had with people about veganism.  When it’s all you have ever known, it can be really hard to acknowledge that things you are doing or things you’ve always thought to just “be the way it is” might be wrong. 

When Shay tries to explain to Tally that being Pretty is actually giving up your true self, Tally brushes it off and doesn’t believe it.  

The characters are all pretty simple; not a lot of depth to them. We don’t really know a lot about them except the essentials to make the story flow. I would have loved to know more about the Boss. He seemed like a really interesting character, a lot more than Tally to be perfectly honest.

I really recommend Uglies by Scott Westerfeld if you want to read a light YA dystopian. I myself am not a fan of that genre, but I really enjoyed it. It had a lot more meat to it than I thought it would. I’m definitely going to pick up Pretties at some point because of how the first book ended.

My rating: (more like 3.5)

You can buy this book HERE!