B3THANY READS

Title: The Book of M Author: Peng Shepherd Rating: 3/5 I finished 'The Book of M' about a week ago now and have had enough time to fully form all my mixed feelings about it, so here's my (spoiler-y) review! I fell in love with the book as soon as I started reading it, but it got progressively harder to enjoy the more I stuck with it. And here's why. There wasn't nearly enough world building. I would have actually preferred 'The Book of M' to be split into two books if it meant we would get more world building in the first. There just wasn't enough explaining - the whole way through I felt like there were gaps in my knowledge about the world when characters would mention something I was expected to have figured out on my own. It was kinda confusing. I know it's not good to spell everything out but at least give us a chance maybe ??? For example, I never understood how Ursula managed to get them out of the cage and into this new and i...

      Title: The Little Book of Hygge Author: Meik Wiking Rating: 3/5 'The Little Book of Hygge' was kindly recommended to me by a good friend of mine when I told him I was feeling a bit homesick on my year abroad. He said it had helped him feel better and thought I should give it a go as well. So I did! I read most of this book on the train from Verona, Italy to Venice, Italy where this photo was taken. It was a really quick and easy read with lots of interesting diagrams and photos to keep me entertained on the journey. I find it difficult to write reviews on non-fiction books as I don't do it very often and don't really know what the protocol is... but I'll give it a go anyway! I found the concept super interesting - I had never heard of hygge before and, to be honest, didn't know much about Danish culture in the first place, so it's safe to say this really opened my eyes. It was cool learning about a whole new culture that is so differ...

Title: When the Moon Was Ours Author: Anne-Marie McLemore Rating: 2/5 I don't even know where to start with this book. 'When the Moon Was Ours' had been in my want-to-read section of Goodreads for a long time before I ever seriously considered actually reading it. It came up on my feed, I quickly read the synopsis and decided it sounded good. Added it to my TBR with no intention of actually reading it. But then I went on my year abroad, and my mum kindly asked me if there were any English books I would like her to buy and post to me (thanks, mum). So, as it was nearing Halloween spooky time, I decided to go with the theme of magical, whimsical and maybe even a bit scary to suit the October vibe. I chose 'When the Moon Was Ours' amongst others. As soon as I started reading it I found it pretentious. I automatically picked up on the flowery language that was already annoying me by page 3. This continued to bug me throughout the whole book, which I wi...

Title: The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil Author: Stephen Collins Rating: 3/5 'The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil' is the first graphic novel I have read that isn't The Walking Dead or superhero themed. The only graphic novel I knew was the fast-paced, action-packed adventure where someone dies every other page, so this was quite refreshing. However I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Firstly, from reading a few reviews, I was expecting to be blown away by the artwork because people rant and rave about it. However unfortunately this wasn't the case. Yes, it's simplistic and beautiful but I couldn't bring myself to appreciate it as much as others had. Maybe I just don't have an eye for art, who knows. I do have a few favourite pages where I particularly like the artwork and the clever positioning of the drawings on the page, but I definitely think it didn't live up to the hype. Secondly, the story line did not go the way I t...