Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher

This book is written in a very distinct style, one I don't think I have ever read before. It is told by the main character clay who is listening to cassette tapes sent to him anonymously. He listens to stories told by Hannah, a girl in his year at school who killer herself two weeks prior. She is telling her whole story.

Just the premise of this is amazing and as the whole point (or at lest I feel it is) of the book is to make people, especially teenagers, think about the repercussions of their careless actions, it makes Clay also questions his actions and reactions to each thing Hannah describes.
I found I was immediately drawn in to this book and I really wanted to know what could have happened to this young girl to make her want to commit suicide. Also to have have it told to you in this fashion, on audio suicide note, is transfixing.

The format of the cassette tapes and each 'chapter' being a side of a tape is a quaint and interesting way to go about telling the story. I must admit though that the jolting back and forth between Clay and Hannah's voices is very quick and at times extremely frustrating. Hannah is 'talking', so be quiet Clay, stop butting in to tell us stuff.

The second half of this book, from cassette 5 side A, gets a little dark and hard to listen to at times, although you are so engrossed there is no chance of pressing pause. Just a warning as it is very different to the first half where you can tell the characters are younger and things aren't as important.

This book has been on my to be read list for well over a year now and I'm so happy that I finally got around to reading/listening to it. It's very easy to listen to/read as it flows easily. I imagine the actual book with large spaces  between lines and large indents on all sides of the text. The narrators of the audio book, Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone, were great and Debra has a beautiful voice.

To think this book, which is told from a teenage girls perspective is written by a guy is mind blowing. He managed to get inside a young girls head so well that whilst listening to the book I was positive it must have been written by a woman.

Quidditch through the Ages - J K Rowling & Kennilworth Whisp

This was one of the most fun books I have read in a while. True, it is only a novella about an imaginary sport, but it gave so much detail into the vibrant and colourful history of Quidditch. 

I now know more about Quidditch than I know about other real sports like rugby and even soccer. 

To be able to create such an in depth history, Rowling is truly gifted with an immense imagination of which I am envious. The whole book had me wanting to know more and I thought not only giving the history but also prominent teams throughout the world was a great touch to allow everyone to feel involved and like they would have a home team to barrack for.

Still Foolin' Em: Where I've been, where I'm going and where the hell are my keys?- Billy Crystal

Billy Crystal sure knows how to tell a story. Not only tell a story but make it humorous, funny and touching. While this may be the story of his life it feels more like he is standing there telling you the story one on one. It did help that I listened to the audio book, which he narrated himself, so yes I did have Billy Crystal there telling me everything. The audio book does actually have a few of the chapters read 'live' in front of an audience, making the story telling that much more fun.

While it did not feel like a particularly long book and the tales are told in varying order, mostly from childhood to the age of 65, it sped by so fast that I found myself sad when I realised the end was near and I wouldn't hear more of this amazing funny man that I love.

There was a lot about his life that I simply did not know beforehand, which made the story even more enjoyable for me as I learnt all sorts of fun things about him. He touched on some of the movies he has made, his friends throughout the years, his family and living as a Jew. Don't be fooled into thinking this will be a retelling of the movies he has made with various other celebrities as it mainly focuses on how certain aspects of a movie came to fruition.

A great audio book to listen to that engages you and makes you only love this funny funny man even more.

Clariel - Gath Nix

What a wonderful return to the Abhorsen world. I thoroughly enjoyed reentering this world, hundreds of years in the past before Sabriel, and seeing it from a different point of view. I would have loved to have follow an Abhorsen a little more and get to experience the bells and the world of the dead with the nine gates, but this angle was good also. 

Clariel was a character I came to like very early on for her wit and humour. Then as the story went on and she grew and evolved as a person I found that I still liked her. She is the true representation of the path to hell is paved with good intentions. 

The story started slowly and introduced a lot of things that the reader had not previously learned of In the previous books, but as soon as it started it was fast paced from then on not slowing down for the rest if the story. While I could tell exactly where the story was going as soon as she met with Aziminil and Baazalanan at the Abhorsen's house, I felt that was where the story needed to go and that not every heroine can always be a heroine, no matter how much a person tries to be one.

From the Author's note at the end, I will have to go back to Lirael and read the start again to reacquaint myself with a 600+ year old Clariel as Chlorr of the Mask. I can't wait for the promised further books of the Old Kingdom.

How to train your dragon - Cressida Cowell

This book was so much fun. I wanted to read it after I discovered that the movie was based on a book, and I sure am glad I did. While the storyline of the book is vastly different to the movie, they both have the feel about them. 

Hiccup is just as loveable as the narrator, after all this is his book on How to Train your Dragon, to replace the exceedingly lacking previous book by the same title. His group of training buddies have the same contempt and disdained for the 'useless' Hiccup as they do in the movie, however I was a little disappointed that they were all male. That was a nice touch in the movie to have two girls in the group. However the dragons were a bit of a surprise. I was expecting them to be the huge dragon like creatures that initially come to mind when you think of dragons, so it was a shock when I read that they were quite small creatures more akin to Fire Lizards in Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. 

Being a children's book it made it fun to see drawings of the characters and events that occurred in the book throughout. There was even a basic replica of the original How to Train your Dragon book inserted so that the reader can "share the experience with Hiccup of opening that book for the first time". This sort of inclusion is what makes this book fantastic and would keep young readers involved and turning the pages.

Reading this book only took me a few hours, but it made me feel like I had just watched a half hour cartoon on a Saturday morning like I did when I was a kid. It was simple yet portrayed the story clearly and easily so that kids (and heck, even adults like me) would be hooked and want to read more tales of Hiccup, Toothless and their Viking friends, which is great as there are a further 11 books in the series.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Very underwhelmed by this book. I'm not sure if it was because of all the hype around it, but then I think that I add this book to my 'to be read' pile years ago before there was even talk of a movie being made, from recommendations and reviews on the podcast 'Books on the Nightstand'.

While it was interesting and I did want to find out what was going on, I thought it was a huge let down. Already knowing that there was a huge twist in the book, I found it totally underwhelming when I realised that I had read that part and completely missed that it was the twist. To me that part was just what would logically follow from where the book had gone.

Amy's little adventure (I'll call it that for lack of a better word) was boring and had me thinking of better ways the story could have gone. There were characters and storylines that seemed to be in there to pad the book up. And things were not tied up all nicely like the character seems to think there were. I can think of half a dozen questions that arise without even going in to detail.

Then ending was completely bland. Just like every other marriage, with compromise and both people not getting to do what they want to do. True that the compromises are on a huge scale and not what you would expect from even a million marriages but that is how it read to me. The book finished and I was trying to find the next chapter to see what actually happened to these two sickening people.

Oh and the writing in the book is so mundane that I thought it should have been a YA novel with graphic context. Sure there were a few (maybe half a dozen) words that I had to look up in the dictionary, but a good sophisticated adult book it does not make.

I just hope the movie I'm about to watch is better and has made this whole adventure worth my time.

3 stars, a thorough let down.

Revenge Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger

Over 10 years after the original Devil wears Prada a sequel has been released. The main characters are all now in their early to mid 30's with more advanced careers and have moved on from Runway. It was great to revisit the lives of Andy and Emily again and hear what they have been up to in the last decade, sort of like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen since Uni.

However the first half of the book felt very different than “Devil”. It was a lot slower paced and the characters seem to have out grown their swearing that as very prevalent from what I remember. It seemed more of rehashing the interim from “Devil” than actually having a new story. The original was marked with a go-go-go style with no time for breaks, never ending descriptions of people’s outfits and fashion items all interspersed with chipped, snarky comments from numerous characters. So far everyone is civil to each other, there is little to no swearing, the pace is chilled out and the fashion descriptions are so minimal that you actually pay attention to them when you come across them when reading.

The second half of the book gets more into a storyline but it jumps all over the place and is disjointed. You get into a scene and want to know what happens and how things go and then Bam! you are a few months in the future with little to no reference about it at all. Disappointing.

While yes there is more of the storyline it is a boring storyline. No one wants to read a book about a person coming to terms with being married and having a kid, especially when it’s a sequel to such a fast paced, in demand, exhausting book 1.

Emily has lost all her pizazz and edge and is just another run of the mill character from any book, while Andy is a very watered down version of her 'pushed over' self. And still even then you only see that happen infrequently.

It seems as though this book was toned down to be the sequel of the movie version of “Devil wears Prada”, not a continuation of the book version. I was very disappointed and the ending made me gag. Can you get any more American Hollywood feel good ending. Not a story I would choose to read. Ever!