4lr3ady_de4d's reviews
68 reviews

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

History Is All You Left me is a really sad yet gripping story about overcoming loss, heartbreak and OCD.

However, much like with More Happy Than Not, the ending realisation felt way too rushed. People’s brains just aren’t like that. I’m starting to think maybe I just don’t like Silvera’s way of ending stories…

How to make the best coffee at home by James Hoffmann

informative fast-paced

3.0

If you already like James Hoffmann and have watched most of his videos - not much of this will be new to you. But either way, it's a decent compilation of pretty much everything he talks about in his videos in one book.

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

i don’t even think i can put into words the way this book made me feel. and i don’t think i’ll ever mentally recover from this.

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I will admit, I had no idea where this book was going until everything snapped mid-way through and I actually started to enjoy it just a little bit.

The ending had me feeling somewhat lukewarm about it all. I get what it’s trying to say but it still feels unresolved to me. Sure, realising happiness can be found everywhere is obviously a good thing but here it ends up being massively unsatisfying.

Mind Fuel: Simple Ways to Build Mental Resilience Every Day by Bear Grylls

hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

3.0

Mind Fuel is structured in a way that I believe is meant to be read over the course of a year, so some of my criticisms may be slightly different if you are doing as such.

The book covers many topics relating to mental health, resilience and much more condensed into easily-digestible two-page spreads. Because of this, it allows for a lot of breadth, but at the same time little depth in the topics raised.

At times, the topics raised can get a little bit repetitive. It is often that the same thing is said two or three times, but said differently. 

How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life by Caroline Webb

slow-paced

1.0

thank god that’s over. so much yapping. i feel like the person who wrote the title and synopsis was so allergic to the book that they just made something up and rolled with it.

while there are a couple of decent takeaways, the amount of fluff made it a truly insufferable read. get to the fucking point.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver

funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I Wish You All The Best is really heartfelt and personally hit a little close to home.

Admittedly, my biggest criticism is that I wish there was more!

If you liked Radio Silence by Alice Oseman, you’ll probably like this too as it shares many topics.

Somewhere in the Crowd by Katrina Logan

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

This was definitely one of the books about Eurovision I’ve read of all time. Kinda feel like the characters barely changed over the 12 years, just the things around them. I’m sure this is great if you’re a casual Eurovision fan but some parts were so infuriating that I genuinely was going to DNF it. Unfortunately, I’m a masochist and went through it anyway. It wasn’t really worth it.

Growing up Hadley by Dana Harp

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

DISCLAIMER: I got a free copy via a contest on the Storygraph.

Growing Up Hadley is crushing and heartbreaking, yet briefly heartwarming in places. Whilst thankfully there is a happy ending, it felt very much rushed at the end in just a mere few-page epilogue. 

The pacing throughout felt messy in places, you’d have a ton of events happening together and then a big time jump which made for a slightly jarring read and was confusing to follow at times.

I do want to thank Harp for giving away so many copies - whilst it was a miss for me personally, I know so many people will have found her through this that will very much think differently to me.

(P.S. Didn’t spot any typos, people who got the email after winning in the contest will get it 😉)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Death of parent

You Will Get Through This Night by Daniel Howell

funny hopeful informative fast-paced

4.0

It’s really hard to me to be unbiased about this book as I’ve been following Dan since I was pretty young.

YWGTTN as most people refer to it as is very much a whistle-stop tour surrounding mental health. I feel like his humour is as understandable to long-time fans as it would people completely new to him. With this, he manages to break down methods to deal with bad mental health whilst keeping the book interesting - something that self-help books often fail to do.

As I mention, it is a whistle-stop tour. Because of this, at times certain topics lack depth.