Like a Charm by Elle McNicoll

 

Pages: 313

Publisher: Knights Of 

Released: 3rd of February 2022 

Edinburgh is a city filled with magical creatures. No one can see them... until Ramya Knox.

As she is pulled into her family's world of secrets and spells, Ramya sets out to discover the truth behind the Hidden Folk with only three words of warning from her grandfather: Beware the Sirens.

Plunged into an adventure that will change everything, Ramya is about to learn that there is more to her powers than she ever imagined.

What I Have to Say 

I love Elle McNicoll so much. I love that she writes characters like me who are neurodiverse and she does it so well. She makes things hopeful and happy rather than dwelling on the difficulties. Although sometimes her writing is so accurate that it hurts a little bit, she makes me feel seen. 

Like a Charm wasn't as good as Show Us Who You are. I still enjoyed it, but Show Us Who You Are was truly special for me and I don't think anything could live up to it. That said, I just found Ramya a little bit too abrasive. She's a beautifully made character, strong and brave and full of personality and I can understand why she's abrasive. She has every reason to be. It's just for me that was a bit off-putting. 

Like Ramya, I have dyspraxia, but only mild, so it doesn't effect my life as much as it does hers. I can't ride a bike and I have trouble carrying a tray of drinks without spilling them everywhere, but other than that, I don't really notice it. But I can still relate hugely to the way the teachers talked about her. The fact that she was always a disappointment to them because she was never quite enough. That and the motor skills workshops is something we share.

I was very happy with the representation in this book, but it wasn't everything to me the way that the autism representation was in Show Us Who We Are. Perhaps if I had worse dyspraxia, then it might have been more. 

All in all though I really enjoyed this book, I'm looking forward to seeing more adventures from Ramya and Marley, especially now that Ramya's starting to fit herself a little better. 

My thanks go to Nights Of And Ed PR for providing me with a copy of this book for review. 

The Burning by Laura Bates

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 368 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK 

Released: 21st of February 2019 

 A rumour is like a fire. You might think you’ve extinguished it but one creeping, red tendril, one single wisp of smoke is enough to let it leap back into life again. Especially if someone is watching, waiting to fan the flames ...

 

New school.

Tick.

New town.

Tick.

New surname.

Tick.

Social media profiles?

Erased.

 

There’s nothing to trace Anna back to her old life. Nothing to link her to the ‘incident’.

 

At least that’s what she thinks … until the whispers start up again. As time begins to run out on her secrets, Anna finds herself irresistibly drawn to the tale of Maggie, a local girl accused of witchcraft centuries earlier. A girl whose story has terrifying parallels to Anna’s own…

Trigger Warnings: rape,  public humiliation, torture, bullying, cyber bullying, rumours, mention of abortion

What I Have to Say 

This only thing this book was missing was a bit more witchcraft. I loved the parallels that Bates used between Anna's story in the present and Maggie's story in the past, showing that the way women were oppressed in the past are still very much still being used today. 

Anna and Maggie were both normal girls who made the mistake of trusting the wrong guy. I loved how Anna delved so deeply into her research on Maggie, how the information wasn't as easy as just going to the library and reading a story that was laid out nicely for her in a book or too. I find the details of real historical research fascinating, making a mystery so much harder for a character to find and much more satisfying when they get the information. 

I've seen so many books about cyber-bullying and naked photos lately, so I'm just really interested in seeing Bates bring forward a new way to tell this story. Her characters and plot are interesting, but it's definitely the historical witch hunt element that sets this book apart from others of it kind. 

Another must read for feminists! 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with this free copy for review. 

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 400

Publisher: Harper Collins 

Released: 3rd of December 2018 (Kindle only, paper release 24th of January 2019)

EVERYONE’S INVITED. 

EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT.

Bristling with tension, bitter rivalries, and toxic friendships, get ready for the most hotly-anticipated thriller of 2019.

In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year.

The beautiful one

The golden couple

The volatile one

The new parents

The quiet one

The city boy

The outsider

The victim.

Not an accident – a murder among friends.

What I Have to Say 

The ending ruined this book to me. The reveal of the murder. Because the author took the same way out that tons of other crime writers do to explain why this person did the things they did. So, SPOILERS FOR MOTIVE OF MURDER BUT NOT THE ACTUAL KILLER: surprise surprise, it was a personality disorder, because why else would someone kill someone? If there were more books about people with personality disorders living healthy lives without being cast as the villain every time, this wouldn't be so big of an issue. The fact is there are people living out in the world with these issues. And every time they see themselves in fictions they are the twist in a crime novel. The world is sending them a message to say that they are destined to kill someone and THAT IS NOT OKAY. 

Until that, I really liked the book. I'm really upset with how that one bit of the book ruined the rest of it for me. Because the plot was really engrossing. The characters were engaging and completely dis-likeable in the way that some plots work with dislikeable characters and the setting was beautifully written. I loved the feeling of beauty all around that was created at the start of the book and the way it changed to an isolated, desolated landscape as the storm hit. 

I wish I could recommend this book, because it really kept me reading and enjoying it for most of the book, but I know the damage it does to people with personality disorders, so I just can't. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Harper Collins for providing me with this copy for review. 

The Survival Game by Nicky Singer

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 384

Publisher: Hodder Children's Books 

Released: 26th of July 2018 

In a world full of checkpoints and controls, can love and hope defy the borders? A searing, timely story, as arresting as it is beautiful. 

Mhairi Anne Bain owns only two things: a gun with no bullets and her identity papers.

The world is a shell of what it once was. Now, you must prove yourself worthy of existence at every turn, at every border checkpoint. And if you are going to survive, your instincts will become your most valuable weapon.

Mhairi has learnt the importance of living her own story, of speaking to no one. But then she meets a young boy with no voice at all, and finds herself risking everything to take him to safety.

And so Mhairi and the silent boy travel the road north. But there are rumours that things in Scotland have changed since she has been away. What Mhairi finds there is shocking and heart-breaking, but might finally re-connect her to her sense of self and to the possibility of love.

What I Have to Say 

I adored the first half of this book, but the second half was really, really dull. I don't think I've ever been this divided about the book. The first part is an amazing journey of survival in the face of immigration and guards who will lock anyone up for trying to cross the boarders. The second half though is all waiting and laws and although it was vaguely interesting to see the laws in place in Mhairi's home, I just really didn't need to read it. 

Mhairi's journey across to Scotland though was amazing. It was gripping, suspenseful and full of the ways that Mhairi has had to cope with things she's done and seen, all the trauma that she has to compartmentalise because dealing with it is impossible to do while also trying to keep herself and the boy alive. 

I loved Mhairi' character, her communication with a boy that can't speak. The flashbacks to what happened in her life before she got to Heathrow and the journey that she had to make, avoiding the guards and escaping capture. 

It really was great. It's worth reading just for the first half. I just wish that the second part had been as good. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Hodder for providing me with this copy for review. 

Girlhood by Cat Clarke

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 342

Publisher: Quercus 

Released: 4th of May 2017 

Harper has tried to forget the past and fit in at expensive boarding school Duncraggan Academy. Her new group of friends are tight; the kind of girls who Harper knows have her back. But Harper can't escape the guilt of her twin sister's Jenna's death, and her own part in it - and she knows noone else will ever really understand.

But new girl Kirsty seems to get Harper in ways she never expected. She has lost a sister too. Harper finally feels secure. She finally feels...loved. As if she can grow beyond the person she was when Jenna died.

Then Kirsty's behaviour becomes more erratic. Why is her life a perfect mirror of Harper's? And why is she so obsessed with Harper's lost sister? Soon, Harper's closeness with Kirsty begins to threaten her other relationships, and her own sense of identity.

How can Harper get back to the person she wants to be, and to the girls who mean the most to her?

What I Have to Say 

This was interesting and guessed what Kirsty was doing from fairly early on. It was interesting to see this story line from the point of view of someone who was so taken in by Kirsty and who just couldn't see how creepy and manipulative she was being. 

What I think I liked most though, other than the beautiful friendship group, full of diversity, was the fact that this isn't a story about destroying and losing friendships. It's a story about second chances. It's about redemption and moving passed grief. Harper is so filled with grief and guilt over the death of her sister and it's all about her and her family needing to move on from that. 

I also felt the boarding school atmosphere was accurate at showing the good and bad sides of boarding school as well. It showed the bitchiness and grudges that students can get in that intense, all girl atmosphere as well as the fun that Harper and her friends get from their close friendships. It shows how friendships can be lost and how hard that is and also how to move on with that. 

In general, it just had a lot of great messages and lot going for it. 

My thanks go to Quercus and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 416 

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's Books 

Released: 4th of May 2017 

When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she’d imagined won’t be exactly like she anticipated. And once she returns to her grandfather’s estate, a bit banged up but alive, she begins to realize that her injury might not have been an accident. One of her family’s employees is missing, and he disappeared on the very same day she landed in the hospital.

Desperate to figure out what happened, she befriends Euan McEwen, the Scots Traveller boy who found her when she was injured, and his standoffish sister Ellen. As Julie grows closer to this family, she experiences some of the prejudices they’ve grown used to firsthand, a stark contrast to her own upbringing, and finds herself exploring thrilling new experiences that have nothing to do with a missing-person investigation.

Her memory of that day returns to her in pieces, and when a body is discovered, her new friends are caught in the crosshairs of long-held biases about Travellers. Julie must get to the bottom of the mystery in order to keep them from being framed for the crime.

What I Have to Say 

Mostly, this book made me want to read Code Name Verity again. I'd forgotten how awesome Julie was as a character. This book was amazing and I loved it, but not as amazing as Code Name Verity was. I think it would take a lot to beat Code Name Verity though. 

The story was so good though. It really showed prejudice but also in a way that showed the privalidge that Julie had. I think it was especially interesting because it showed the Traveller's feeling annoyed when Julie did things for them, even when there really no choice for her in certain cases. I think it really helps show that even though we have the best of intentions, we still have so much privilege and we have to acknowledge it. It's definitely one of those cases where having a book about prejudice written from the point of view of a privileged white girl can actually address the issues in a good way. 

The mystery was really good too. I love how Wein makes you think that you know what happened, at least to a certain extent and then throws in a new piece of evidence that completely changes everything. It wasn't as big a reveal as with Code Name Verity, but it was still pretty awesome. 

I definitely need to read Code Name Verity again now. 

My thanks go to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.