Magyk by Angie Sage

OMG I thought I’d already reviewed this! =/ So sorry it’s 5 days late =/

Review [Non-Spoiler]: 3 out of 5 stars

This is a solid book. It is a very solid middlegrade fantasy adventure book ^_^ Very enjoyable. A lot of adventure. Great characters – my favourites were the Boy, the rat and the Hunter was interesting too! Satisfying ending and felt like an ending even though it’s part of a series – no cliffhanger (YAY!). Enough mystery to keep me entertained but not complex so matches the target age perfectly =] My favourite part was definitely message rat and the dragon boat – that was so good!

I do feel however that the book is perhaps a bit too long for the target audience. If I had read this at the age it was aimed at I think I would’ve given up about 400 pages in. But that’s me personally. Still loved it and enjoyed it and I have the sequel so I’ll most likely read it soon!

Have you read this book?

NetGalley ARC Update!

Just thought I’d quickly celebrate my one year on NetGalley and I’m celebrating by crying at all the ARCs I have received but still yet to read >.<

But first two quick facts:
I have had 37 Approvals and my Approval Ratio: 30% – o dear

Now let’s see how my journey has been so far.

Reviewed

Robot Uprisings, April 10^th 2014 – Reviewed
L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 30, May 6^th 2014 – Reviewed
Look Who’s Back, March 3^rd 2014 – Reviewed
The Truth About Alice, June 3^rd 2014 – Reviewed
Thief’s Magic, May 15^th 2014 – Reviewed
The Queen of the Tearling, July 17^th 2014 – Reviewed
City of Stairs, September 9^th 2014 – Reviewed
The Paper Magician, September 1^st 2014 – Reviewed
The Rain, July 17^th 2014 – Reviewed
The Storm, February 26^th 2015 – Reviewed

Reading

The Glass Magician, November 4^th 2014 – Currently Reading
The House of the Four Winds, August 5^th 2014 – Started Reading [not re-picked up in months]

Yet to Read

The Falcone Throne, September 9^th 2014 – Yet to Read
Branded, June 28^th 2013 – Yet to Read
The Well of Tears, September 18^th 2012 – Yet to Read
The Line, November 25^th 2013 – Yet to Read
These Days Are Ours, September 4^th 2014 – Yet to Read
Heart of Dread: Frozen, October 2^nd 2014 – Yet to Read
Outer Limits, June 24^th 2014 – Yet to Read
Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets, October 7^th 2014 – Yet to Read
Returner’s Wealth, September 3^rd 2013 – Yet to Read
The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2014, June 17^th 2014 – Yet to Read
The Circus of the Dead, November 3^rd 2014 – Yet to Read
The Palace Job, October 8^th 2013 – Yet to Read
Gods and Monsters: Mythbreakers, December 2^nd 2014 – Yet to Read
The Three-Body Problem, November 11^th 2014 – Yet to Read
The Great Zoo of China, January 27^th 2015 – Yet to Read
The Curse Keepers Collection, March 17^th 2015 – Yet to Read
Angelfall, May 23^rd 2013 – Yet to Read
The Girl at Midnight, April 28^th 2015 – Yet to Read

Reviewed: 10
Yet to Read: 18
Reading: 1 [Technically 2]

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So as you can tell me reading and not-read ratio has a HUGE difference! But with #0by16 I am hoping to get all those pre-accepted-2015 books done this year! But where to start =/ Help?

Top Ten Tuesday #34

This Week’s Theme: Ten Books You Recently Added To Your To-Be-Read List

Fantasy YA. Bryn Aven is an outcast among the Kanin, the most powerful of the troll tribes. Set apart by her heritage and her past, Bryn is a tracker who’s determined to become a respected part of her world. She has just one goal: become a member of the elite King’s Guard to protect the royal family.

Contemporary YA. This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them.

Fiction China. Grace falls forever out of love with her husband and very much in love with this country and its culture. In the chaos of the Beijing streets and in the home of her new friends Dr. Yu and her son Zaofan, Grace finds the web of life she’s been too lost to perceive.

SF. In a world in which the police have telepathic powers, how do you get away with murder?

Historical Fantasy YA. A young woman with the magical ability to sense the presence of gold must flee her home, taking her on a sweeping and dangerous journey across Gold Rush–era America.

SF Steampunk Mystery. When an airship crashes in mysterious circumstances, Sir Maurice and his recently appointed assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes are called in to investigate. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is baffled by a spate of grisly murders and a terrifying plague is ravaging the slums of the city.

SF YA. A high-concept, fantastical espionage novel set in a world where dreams are the ultimate form of political intelligence.

Fantasy Sequel. The city of Voortyashtan was once the domain of the goddess of death, war, and destruction, but now it’s little more than a ruin. General Turyin Mulaghesh is called out of retirement and sent to this hellish place to try to find a Saypuri secret agent who’s gone missing in the middle of a mission, but the city of war offers countless threats.

Fantasy YA Retelling. When Jafar steals the Genie’s lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish.To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed Princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. But soon their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war.

Non-Fiction Humour. Sh*t Rough Drafts collects imagined misguided early drafts of classic books, screenplays, and contemporary literature, creating visions of alternate works that would exist had the authors not come to their senses.

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And that is my list!

Did anyone them catch you fancy? Link your TTT below!

Same Time. Next Week [perhaps]!

What’s The Story Saturday? #3

This is a thing I have started running every Saturday to help get my creative juices in my brain running. You are welcome to do it too!

Rules:

Pick a book cover (preferably one that you don’t know the plot about at all).
Guess what the story is e.g. who’s our mc; female? male? what genre is it? what happens?.
[Optional >] After that actually read up about the synopsis and comment on whether you think yours is better xD

Week 3’s Pick Is:

My Story: Mystery – 19th/early 20th century perhaps. (This one is tricky for me) Perhaps a woman has been murdered. Turns out she’s a mistress but the key to unlocking the mystery is a through a cryptic device. The detective is… a woman in her 30s who normally acts like such a lady when she’s socialising but as soon as she’s on a case she doesn’t hold her tongue, is very horribly truthful to people she meets and her posture changes to a very manly form.

The Actual Synopsis: Young, beautiful, and witty, Ginevra de’ Benci longs to take part in the artistic ferment of Renaissance Florence. But as the daughter of a wealthy family in a society dictated by men, she is trapped in an arranged marriage, expected to limit her creativity to domestic duties. Her poetry reveals her deepest feelings, and she aches to share her work, to meet painters and sculptors mentored by the famed Lorenzo de Medici, and to find love.

After Thoughts: It’s completely different! It’s a historical (and YA!) and not a mystery (or adult!) but the MC is a female so like half a point there! In all honesty my novel sounds better but that’s because I don’t really dabble in historical fiction – maybe I should …

Same Time, Next Week!

2015 Bookish Resolutions Quarterly Round Up #1

Good evening! Tonight I shall be looking back at the 2015 bookish resolutions I made and seeing how my progress is going. The resolutions can be seen in this post. Now let’s see how well (or how badly) I am doing on my goals.

Part One: Minimum Goals

1. GoodReads Goal = 20 (I have read 6 books. 30% through my challenge and currently 2 books ahead – Success!)

2. #Project5Books (3 books have been valid for this project. Not bought one book yet this year – excluding the one I needed for my academic studies! – Success! But it’s killing me not buying books.)
3. Read 5 Classics (Not read any of the classics that were on this list yet – Failing.)
4. Read everyday (Minus the past 2/3 weeks this has been occuring almost every night – Success!)
5. Keep up blog (I personally think I’ve done pretty well in posting – Success?)

Part Two: Aim Goals

6. Read all Brandon Sanderson books pre-2015 (0 read so far – Failing!)
7. Finish ALL ARCS! (Two read but only read one was received before 2015 – Failing!)

8. Finish 4 Series/Trilogies (I’ve finished two! So 50% done – Success!)

9. Terry Pratchett (Only read one so far – failing!)

10. Out way manga vs books (Ratio has changed from 119 manga to 112 books (2014.12.30) to 119:118 – Success!)
11. Complete a November NaNoWriMo (N/A)
12. Physical books down to at least 40 (Read 3 physical so far, current physical books: 71 – failing?)

Insane Goals

13. #0by16 (According to GR I have dropped to 99 books for this challenge, but we’ll break it down: 16 ARCS (-1) + 69 Physical Books (-3) + 13 Ebooks (+/-0) – failing?)
14. NPR’s 100 Best SF and Fantasy Books Challenge (Not even looked at the list properly yet! – failing!)

Total Completed: 0

Another update in June/July! How are your resolutions going?

March 27th 2015 #FridayReads + What To Read Next?!

Cannot believe it’s been exactly a month since I last did one of these! << Just shows how little time I have had to read! *cries* But I finally have found time so I can finally post another FridayReads =]

Last night I finished Magyk! (Update tonight or tomorrow! Spoiler alert: I enjoyed it!)

I am aiming to finish The Glass Magician this weekend as it’s only a short book and I’m travelling home for the holidays so I’ll be reading (if I’m not busy with my dissertation corrections) it on the way! =]

But I have absolutely no idea what to start next! I’m suppose to be doing #YearofCosmere and this months’ book is The Well of Ascension but I do not have the time to be able to read an epic fantasy and I don’t wanna ruin the impact and amazingness of it by starting it but not being able to finish it until like June =[

So what do I start next?!

I was thinking as April = GoT I was gunna carry on reading it but I’m naturally gunna do that anyway and I don’t feel like picking it up right now anyway. Anyone got any ideas of what to read next? Out of my TBR I’m thinking:

But I was also thinking of getting another ARC out of the way, like:

What should I read next?! What are your fridayreads this week?!

I Love Spring Tag

It’s tag Thursday! Let’s get cracking! or, a churppin’ (because it’s spring)!

1. How is spring where you live?

At the minute it’s either raining and okay temp. or sunny but cold cold wind. Also at night it is super warm and everyone in the house is dying at night and frozen in the morning -_- Also according to my timehop, this time 3 years ago it was 19 degrees and I was in shorts!! -_- it’s not got above 7 degrees this year yet!

2. Most anticipated book release this spring?

I don’t have many that are coming out between March 21 and June 20 so…

Becoming Jinn by Lori Goldstein

[From GoodReads]
Forget everything you thought you knew about genies!
Azra has just turned sixteen, and overnight her body lengthens, her olive skin deepens, and her eyes glisten gold thanks to the brand-new silver bangle that locks around her wrist. As she always knew it would, her Jinn ancestry brings not just magical powers but the reality of a life of servitude, as her wish granting is controlled by a remote ruling class of Jinn known as the Afrit.
To the humans she lives among, she’s just the girl working at the snack bar at the beach, navigating the fryer and her first crush. But behind closed doors, she’s learning how to harness her powers and fulfill the obligations of her destiny.

3. Show us a book cover that makes you think of spring.

Perks or Charlotte’s Web or or car fever [yellow!]

4. Where are you going to read this spring?

You mean ‘are you able to read this spring?’ my answer is probably not but if I can it’ll be in my bed as I’m dropping off to sleep after a long day of doing non-stop work, just like I have been doing for over a month already. Is my final year at uni over with now?! =’[

5. Find a cover with the sun on it!

Warcry – kinda? … 5^th Wave [even though it’s not a happy book at all!]

6. What are your favourite spring reads?

I have summer reads and winter reads but not spring reads… something fresh… Charlotte’s Web? Bridge to Terabithia perhaps?

7. Find a book with many different colours on it.

8. Whom do you tag?

By Hook or By Book
thoughts and afterthoughts
Caught Read Handed
Falling Down the Rabbit Hole [if you have time!]
Everyone?

Thank you for reading! Maybe Same Time, Next Week!

Life Update #1

Hey guys! Firstly, a huge apology for lack of updates!
My last lesson before the Easter holidays finished today so now I am officially on holiday! But…

I have a shit ton of work I have to do during the holidays.

Thus I want you all to brace yourselves. I could very well be just as absent until the middle of May as I was this past month or so.

I do apologise and I hate that all it is for me at the mintue is ‘work work work’ and when I’m not working, I’m too tired and would rather just stare blankly at an easy-watching American tv show for an hour or two before sleeping, rather than read or translate or really get into a Japanese-drama or a tv show that needs thinking work =[ breaks my heart.

But hopefully I will be back in full form in less than 8 weeks!

I will try and post some stuff where and when I can during the holidays but don’t get too high an expectation, okay?

Once again, sorry I’m so absent =[ fucking uni final year shit -_- << that’s only the tip of my stress level at the moment xD

What’s The Story Saturday? #2

This is a thing I have started running every Saturday to help get my creative juices in my brain running. You are welcome to do it too!

Rules:

Pick a book cover (preferably one that you don’t know the plot about at all).
Guess what the story is e.g. who’s our mc; female? male? what genre is it? what happens?.
[Optional >] After that actually read up about the synopsis and comment on whether you think yours is better xD

Week 2’s Pick Is:

My Story: A teenage boy. Possibly homosexual. He runs away from home to a cabin in the woods that his parents used to bring him to every summer. It begins with him coming to this cabin and he looks around and seems various objects that. The book is then split into different chapters named after the things he find in the cabin. Turns out his father was abusive towards him because… he’s gay?, his mother is blocking the fact it’s happening and is having an affair, planning to leave him with his father. Half way through a girl and boy turn up at the cabin: his best friends, who help clean his new bruises and cuts that he got from his father that night. They talk about what he should do, where he can go. He feels there is no way out but the best friends are determined to think this through. At one point the girl goes and drives out to get food and supplies leaving the two boys to talk; a relationship and a kiss between them begins. The best friend boy says ‘I like you, regardless of what sex organs you have. I don’t think by what gender someone is as to whether I’m allowed to like them or not. If I like you, I want you. That’s all that matters.’ Two days pass. It ends with his mother turning up at the door. She had come to her senses when he’d run off and realised she didn’t want to lose him. She’d called the police and now the father was being held at the house, waiting for the son to come home as a witness and proof of the abuse so he can be arrested.

The Actual Synopsis: Will Caynes never has been good with girls. At seventeen, he’s still waiting for his first kiss. He’s certainly not expecting it to happen in a drunken make-out session with his best friend, Angus. But it does and now Will’s conflicted—he knows he likes girls, but he didn’t exactly hate kissing a guy. Then Will meets Brandy, a cute and easy-to-talk-to sophomore. He’s totally into her too—which proves, for sure, that he’s not gay. So why does he keep hooking up with Angus on the sly?
Will knows he can’t keep seeing both of them, but besides his new job in a diner, being with Brandy and Angus are the best parts of his whole messed-up life. His divorced parents just complicate everything. His father, after many half-baked business ventures and endless house renovations, has started drinking again. And his mom is no help—unless loading him up with a bunch of stuff he doesn’t need plus sticking him with his twin half-sisters counts as parenting. He’s been bouncing between both of them for years, and neither one feels like home.
Deciding who to love, who to choose, where to live. Whichever way Will goes, someone will get hurt. Himself, probably the most.

After Thoughts: I got the teenage boy part right except my character was about 15. I also got the ‘never kissed anyone before’ (< I didn’t put this in my thing but I did suspect my character had never kissed or been in a relationship before). HA! I also got the best friends part right! And the suspected homosexuality! And one of the friends not saying they’re gay [although my character was more like a ‘I don’t care which way I swing’]. Both stories have flawed shitty parents. I did pretty swell don’t you think! Only major difference is that my story was more abuse and family themed and the actual book is romance themed.

Same Time, Next Week!

How We Define Genres?

This discussion idea came to me while I was watching a recent video by Benjamin of Tomes: Fantasy recommends. And it was interesting that he was classing things like The Young Elites and The Whispers of the Fallen as fantasy, whereas they were books I would’ve said were SF or Paranormal. So it got me thinking: How do you personally define what genre something is?

So first I thought I’d give a few things that make me ‘genre define’ a book:

Fantasy
Magic (system)
Dragons
(Most likely) Made-up land/world

SF
Science
Space(ships)
Computers/Technology
Robots
Futuristic

Superheroes
Abilities that isn’t magic/caused by something e.g. DNA.
Abilities created from illness/virus/genetic mutation

Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic
World gone to shit
Nuclear (power/explosion)
Humanity (almost) dead
Lack of food/water/living/electricity

Paranormal/Supernatural
Vampires/Werewolves
Ghosts
Hunters
Cops fighting SPN crime

It’s not a very solid list but it’s a start of how I define a book in a genre.

What sort of things make you define a book in a particular genre?