April Favourites

April was a such a great reading month for me. Two weeks of school holidays meant extra reading time and I finally got my YA mojo back (after spending most of 2016 reading adult fiction titles). I saw a few of my goodreads friends reading some of my fave YA titles, which gave me reading envy and set me off on a bit of a reread binge of some old fave contemporary YA titles and it was perfectly like visiting with old friends.

April book total: 16
Books: 12 (including 4 rereads)
Audiobooks: 4

Fave read of April:

A List of Cages by Robin Roe
A List of Cages was heartcrushingly good. I knew very little about this book when I started (and I do recommend knowing little ~ so many reviews are absolutely spoilery) and I really did not expect the characters to win me other so completely.

If I were to make a word cloud of this book, included would be: hopeful, tense, devastating, brotherhood, secrets, cute, tears, powerful, smiley.

The seriousness of the subject matter is perfectly balanced with the levity of an outstanding cast of characters who were fun to hang out with and also reminded me of the life-changing power of teenagers who are awesome and stand up to make a difference. I rarely cry actual tears while reading but it was impossible to stay dry-eyed during A List of Cages.

Fave audiobook:

Highly Illogical Behaviour by John Corey Whaley
This was pretty cute and entertaining as an audiobook with dual narrators who definitely brought the story to life. I enjoyed the humour, pop culture nerdy/sci-fi references, and the underlying tension of the premise. I'm not sure I would have read this in book format, but the audio was good, light reading experience that kept me engaged.

Other recommendations:

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett was an entertaining YA read that was cute and addictive with a summer boardwalk/theme park(ish) setting that felt alive and surprisingly unique (the whole cave/museum thing was great). It didn't personally get me swooning but it did keep me smiling and I think you may find a lot to love if you're looking for a new cute summer-love YA read.


Making Faces by Amy Harmon: I like the way Harmon writes and this story had a great message (that did not take over the narrative) with heartache, swooning, humour, and unexpected twists and turns. I didn't love it as much as I loved her fantasy The Bird and The Sword but it was an absorbing and worthwhile read that didn't shy away from hard topics. I liked the timeline of this book which spanned from early childhood, through high school and into early adulthood. If the premise appeals to you definitely give this a go :)

The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine I was both captivated and intermittently frustrated with this original YA fantasy. I loved the world building and characters and the slow burn romance was also believable and satisfying, as was the unique and intriguing features of Fine's world. The only thing holding me back from listing this as a new fave were these weird pacing lulls where I would disengage with the story while waiting for things to keep moving. This complaint is more telling about me as a fantasy reader than the novel itself (I can be unfairly impatient with fantasy at times).

It Ends With Us is the first Colleen Hoover book I have read and I can see her widespread appeal. Hoover has a seamless writing style that drew me in and kept me turning the pages through the night. It was so easy to engage with her characters and get swept into the story. I knew little about this story going in and for that I am so glad (DO NOT read reviews of this one as I loved the way I was taken by surprise). This story was not what I expected> I was hoping for a kind of guilty pleasure, swoony, mindless read but this ended up being quite powerful and affecting. I would love any other Colleen Hoover recommendations as her backlist is rather intimidating and I have no idea where to start. I am not generally a fan of angsty YA/NA novels, but always a fan of absorbing books with captivating characters :)

What's the latest book you've read and loved?

:) Nomes

Sanctum by Sarah Fine

“My plan: Get into the city. Get Nadia. Find a way out. Simple.”

A week ago, seventeen-year-old Lela Santos’s best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance—hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn’t just anyone—she’s determined to save her best friend’s soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife. 

As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she’s captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city’s endless streets. Their all-too-human leader, Malachi, is unlike them in every way except one: his deadly efficiency. When he meets Lela, Malachi forms his own plan: get her out of the city, even if it means she must leave Nadia behind. Malachi knows something Lela doesn’t—the dark city isn’t the worst place Lela could end up, and he will stop at nothing to keep her from that fate.

True confession: I had never even heard of this book. And I saw a two star review of it on goodreads which, for some reason (?), had me intrigued.  I downloaded the sample onto my kindle, and at the end of the sample I clicked the buy-now-and-continue-reading-thingy. I am still baffled at myself. I don't even read this genre, guys (me? Urban fantasy?).

I know nothing about this genre, so it's not like I can compare, all I know is this: I was drawn into this world and spent most the day finding excuses to sneak up to my bedroom and knock off a few more chapters. I read it in under 24 hours and so completely enjoyed myself.

It's hard for me to differentiate between whether this was a good book or just a good reading experience. Does that make sense? At the time, it was so compelling and unusual and swoony and different and just so unexpected. Anyway, I am a fan of a good reading experience and am still stunned at how much I got caught up in this book (sometimes I know I am reading a good book, but the reading experience is just not doing anything for me, so I much prefer a good experience, you know?).

Sanctum is dark. It is set in a kind of Hell-place (you can tell I am out of my depth talking urban fantasy, haha) and so many scenes are vivid in this horrific, scary-intriguing, can't-look-away-way. It's imaginative and compelling. You would think a setting like this would not be the nicest head space to crawl into. Not so. It was strangely fun, like I was inside my own lucid dream, where things felt real but were just horribly, squirmishly wrong. 

Alongside this creative and fully-fleshed out world, Sarah Fine created this kick-arse crew of characters. Complete with mysterious (and ultimately heart-breaking) back stories. I am all about characters, always. It's characters who sell me on a book and in Sanctum I was sold. Lela is tough but relatable, she's unbelievably determined and has just the perfect, tiny amount of sweetness (hidden away in a lovely vulnerable way. And Malachi. OKAY. He is probably the kind of stuff urban fantasy male leads are made of: hot (given), tough and capable (in that warrior way, muscles and kickarse fighting and all that), hard and intimidating (at first...) sensitive and so absolutely vulnerable (okay, secretly, but those hints of vulnerability add to his appeal). These two have chemistry and just LOADS of appeal. People who liked to get carried away and swoon while reading, will be able to swoon away in this book ;)

Sanctum is not the book you think it is. I finished it and even then was like, woah, what did I just read? I am a still a little stunned at the way I gobbled it up, and I am recommending it to people who are in the mood for something different. And to people who don't mind being taken on a strange, and at times dark, journey alongside two beaten down, but still fighting, characters (what a sentence  heh). I'll be reading the next one (the ending of this had an awesome twist, so much so that now I have no idea what to even expect of number two...)      

Does this review even make sense? I am flummoxed. 

This books is shelved as: unexpectedly liked. what did I even just read? swoon. page-flipping frenzy. 

 Sanctum on goodreads