July 2021 – book reviews

One for Sorrow (The Magpie Society #1) by Zoe Sugg

Genre: YA mystery

Pages: 318

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Overall rating: 3.5/5 stars

*This book was sent to me by Penguin random House in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:

Illumen Hall is an elite boarding school. Tragedy strikes when the body of a student is discovered at their exclusive summer party – on her back is an elaborate tattoo of a magpie.

When new girl Audrey arrives the following term, running from her own secrets back home in America, she is thrown into solving the case. Despite her best efforts to avoid any drama, her new roommate Ivy was close to the murdered girl, and the two of them can’t help but get pulled in.

The two can’t stand each other, but as they are drawn deeper into the mystery of this strange and terrible murder, they will discover that something dangerous is at the heart of their superficially perfect school.

Welcome to The Magpie Society.

MY REVIEW:

When I received this book, my first thought was: Murder mystery? Elite boarding school? SIGN ME UP. So, I started the book with high hopes.

I’d finished about 50 pages, before formulating my first opinion. I really loved the setting. A mysterious British school near the coast. The writing was very simple and easy to follow. At this point in the book, I was not a big fan of the characters, especially Ivy, who I thought was blatantly rude for no reason other than wanting the dorm to herself, instead of having to share it with her new roommate, Audrey. The other characters in the novel were pretty hard to keep up with too, since none of them were described in much depth, and I thought they were very easily confused.

By the end of the book, my opinion changed slightly. I liked both Ivy and Audrey a lot more, however my opinion on the other characters remained the same. The mystery aspect of the novel was probably my favourite thing about the book. I was extremely curious as to what happened to Lola, the girl who was supposedly murdered. I really loved the idea of the podcast, and enjoyed that there was also the added mystery of who was behind this.

Something else that I didn’t like about novel, was how easily everything was found out. Being a mystery book, I expected there to be a lot of twists and turns, but most of the time, their first discovery was right. That’s not to say that the novel was completely predictable and a lot of the times, I was myself shocked at what had just happened.

Overall, this is a good, easy read. It deals with issues like bullying and suicide, in, what I thought, was a very sensitive manner. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in mystery novels.

Until next time

-Jenna

Bloomsbury Publishing: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Export Edition

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 442

Publisher: Tor Books

Overall rating: 3.25/5 stars

My review:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a young woman who made a deal to be immortal, but in exchange is cursed to be forgotten by every person she meets. Until she meets a young man named Henry in a bookstore 300 years later and he remembers her.

So, like most people reading this book, I went in with very high expectations. I had never read any of V.E. Schwab’s work before and I was surprised at how beautiful and poetic her writing is. Unfortunately, I found some of the other aspects of the book quite underwhelming.

The concept of the novel was truly interesting. I mean, how difficult must life be if every single person forgets you seconds after they look away? The book definitely delivered in that aspect and I found it interesting to read about the decisions Addie would make. However, the book did end up being very repetitive, and whether this was done purposefully or not, I still found it made the book slightly boring and difficult to get through.

I was warned that the pacing of the beginning of the book was rather slow and as much as I dislike slow pacing, I decided to read it anyway, assuming that it would pick up speed. It did not.

I am fond of character-driven novels if the characters are well-written. The author unfortunately did not focus much on Addie’s personality. Considering half of the book was about Addie’s backstory, it was quite disappointing that I still wasn’t very attached to her character. I really struggled to empathize with her. She just came across as ‘not being like other girls’.

Throughout the novel, we got introduced to many unnecessary characters who, shaped Addie’s life, but really didn’t need so much attention. The second main character was Henry, the love interest, the only person to ever remember Addie. I know a lot of people did not like his character, but I quite liked him and his backstory. I felt I related to him a lot more than I did to Addie. The problem comes in with the fact that he was Addie’s love interest. I felt that they had no chemistry, no banter and no romance.

The final character I’d like to talk about is Luc, the antagonist of the novel. I LOVED HIM. He was the only character I was interested in knowing more about. I wish we got more of him, but he only really featured towards the end of the novel (aka my favourite part of the novel).

Speaking of the ending, I actually quite enjoyed it. The last 70 pages were my favourite and I finished them a lot quicker than I did the rest of the book.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed the writing of this book and will be checking out other V.E. Schwab books to see if I enjoy them a bit more.

What were your thoughts on this book? Let me know in the comments!

Until next

Jenna