theromantasynerd's Reviews (82)

adventurous emotional medium-paced

๐Ÿฆข "๐ˆ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ ๐ญ๐ž๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐ž๐ฌ ๐Ÿ๐ซ๐จ๐ฆ ๐๐š๐ฐ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ค ๐ข๐Ÿ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ฆ๐ž๐š๐ง๐ญ ๐Ÿ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐ž๐ฒ๐ž๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐ก๐š๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ข๐ง๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ."

๐Ÿฆข โ€˜Six Crimson Cranesโ€™ by Elizabeth Lim 

๐Ÿฆข A YA Fantasy Retelling featuring dragons, assassins and lots of magic!

๐Ÿฆข โ€˜Six Crimson Cranesโ€™ is a retelling of the Grimm Brothers โ€˜The Six Swansโ€™ fairytale. It follows Princess Shiori and her brothers after they are cursed. Shiori's brothers are turned into cranes while Shiori finds herself with a bowl over her head and she is unable to speak of her identity or curse without risking her brothers' deaths.

๐Ÿฆข I enjoyed the fact that the pacing stayed quite consistent and managed to keep me glued to it. I loved the world-building and these characters so much and I canโ€™t wait for August to see them again in the sequel โ€˜The Dragonโ€™s Promiseโ€™.

๐Ÿฆข This book does have romance but it is more plot focused. Shiori is such a strong female character. She has to go through so many challenges throughout this book and she never gives up! Iโ€™m very excited to see how much her character continues to grow in the next book.

๐Ÿฆข Limโ€™s writing is so good that I can clearly see in my imagination what sheโ€™s describing. This is the first of her books that Iโ€™ve read and Iโ€™m really intrigued to read the โ€˜Spin the Dawnโ€™ duology as well.
adventurous medium-paced

โ›ช๏ธ "๐‘ป๐’‰๐’† ๐’‰๐’–๐’Ž๐’‚๐’ ๐’Ž๐’Š๐’๐’… ๐’‰๐’‚๐’” ๐’•๐’‰๐’† ๐’‚๐’ƒ๐’Š๐’๐’Š๐’•๐’š ๐’•๐’ ๐’†๐’๐’†๐’—๐’‚๐’•๐’† ๐’‚๐’ ๐’๐’ƒ๐’—๐’Š๐’๐’–๐’” ๐’‡๐’Š๐’„๐’•๐’Š๐’๐’ ๐’•๐’ ๐’•๐’‰๐’† ๐’”๐’•๐’‚๐’•๐’–๐’” ๐’๐’‡ ๐’‚ ๐’…๐’Š๐’—๐’Š๐’๐’† ๐’‡๐’‚๐’„๐’•, ๐’‚๐’๐’… ๐’•๐’‰๐’†๐’ ๐’‡๐’†๐’†๐’ ๐’†๐’Ž๐’ƒ๐’๐’๐’…๐’†๐’๐’†๐’… ๐’•๐’ ๐’Œ๐’Š๐’๐’ ๐’Š๐’ ๐’Š๐’•๐’” ๐’๐’‚๐’Ž๐’†."

โ›ช๏ธ โ€˜๐Ž๐ซ๐ข๐ ๐ข๐งโ€™ by Dan Brown 

โ›ช๏ธ โ€˜Originโ€™ is the 5th Robert Langdon novel and it has similar elements to those of the previous books: a crime in a relevant location such as a museum, a mystery to solve, a smart woman who teams up with Langdon and assists him in solving the mystery, conspiracy theories, religious intrigue, and many interesting scientific and historical facts.

โ›ช๏ธ Dan Brown takes an intriguing approach to the start yet again, by teasing the reader about a question on 'where do we come from and to where are we going' and builds the story around finding the answer. Then a couple of large bombs are dropped on the reader, and, as usual, things escalate quickly after that, followed by an insanely fast-paced plotline with ever-present twists around every corner, and plenty of code-breaking to keep the readers immersed, while Langdon's humor keeps a check on all the suspense.

โ›ช๏ธ Review:
Although some parts were interesting, the novel did not charm me as much as the previous Langdon novels. The core of the story was not as mysterious in my opinion, but it was still quite good. The ending wasn't very satisfying, probably because Dan Brown made sure everything was concluded neatly. 
adventurous emotional medium-paced

 ๐ŸŒ™ โ€œ๐‘ซ๐’ ๐’Ž๐’๐’๐’”๐’•๐’†๐’“๐’” ๐’Ž๐’‚๐’Œ๐’† ๐’˜๐’‚๐’“, ๐’๐’“ ๐’…๐’๐’†๐’” ๐’˜๐’‚๐’“ ๐’Ž๐’‚๐’Œ๐’† ๐’Ž๐’๐’๐’”๐’•๐’†๐’“๐’”?โ€

๐ŸŒ™ โ€˜๐‘จ๐’ ๐‘ฌ๐’Ž๐’ƒ๐’†๐’“ ๐’Š๐’ ๐’•๐’‰๐’† ๐‘จ๐’”๐’‰๐’†๐’”โ€™ by Sabaa Tahir

๐ŸŒ™ I just finished this book and all I can say is that Sabaa Tahir is one INCREDIBLE writer ๐Ÿ™Œ! She owned my soul and played with my emotions in all possible ways with her words. And I loved every bit of it.

๐ŸŒ™ I read this book as part of the #readersretreatsummerreadathon hosted by readersretreatbookclub , readersretreatbox_india , the._bookarazzi and myself ๐Ÿค—. This book fulfils the 2nd prompt from Fantasy - a fantasy book featuring a weapon on the cover. Do join the readathon if youโ€™re interested!

๐ŸŒ™ Summary:

Told in dual timelines, the book focuses on Laia, a scholar who faces the murder of her grandparents and is forced to go undercover as a slave in order to free her brother, and on Elias, who is the golden boy at the academy, but hates his life. The premise was about trying to bring about change to the Martial rule that enslaved the scholars and resulted in their death or led them to slavery.

๐ŸŒ™ Review:

This book is narrated from the alternating perspective of Elias and Laia, and combines the supernatural with an almost dystopian world, creating something completely unique. It is beautifully written, and I was hooked to it from start to finish!

In this book you can experience all kinds of emotions. Fury, about the world where the characters live. Hate, for all the cruel people. Empathy, for Elias who canโ€™t carry the burden of the Blackcliff. Sympathy, to Laia who lost her entire family to death by the empire. And sadness, about the way we lose loads of amazing characters throughout the book. This book explores themes of friendship, loyalty, compassion, love, cruelty, strength, fear and many more. Iโ€™m super excited to get to the second book! 
adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

๐ŸŒ’ โ€œ๐ƒ๐š๐ซ๐ค๐ง๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ, ๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ฅ ๐๐š๐ซ๐ค๐ง๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ, ๐ฐ๐š๐ฌ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ซ๐ž ๐ญ๐ก๐š๐ง ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐š ๐ฅ๐š๐œ๐ค ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ ๐ก๐ญ.โ€

๐ŸŒ’ โ€˜๐๐ž๐š๐ฎ๐ญ๐ข๐Ÿ๐ฎ๐ฅ ๐‚๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ž๐ฌโ€™ by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

๐ŸŒ’ Review:

I was really hyped up to read this book back in high school when I was in my 'Twilight-phase' of reading, but for some reason, I couldn't get more than a couple of chapters in. It failed to suck me in the way other paranormal YA fantasies had. But the book had been sitting on my shelf for years and I finally decided to pick it up this year, just for a change because I haven't read paranormal fantasies in quite some time now.

And boy, was it a good decision!

I enjoyed reading this book a lot, hence the 4 stars. It wasn't mind-numbingly amazing, and a little too slow-paced for my liking, but Ethan and Lena managed to make their way into my heart soon enough. 
I loved the fact that the book is written from a boy's P.O.V. because that is so rare to find in paranormal romances and  YA fiction in general. 
The southern setting was very different from the books I generally read. The way chapters had dates instead of numbers. It was a very different feeling to read this book. 
The mystery surrounding this book and the way they kept switching between timelines between Genevieve and Ethan and Lena and Ethan's story was great too. 

This book ended on a sort of cliffhanger which makes me excited to read the rest of the books in the series, but I think I'm too old for that. Maybe someday.
But I would definitely recommend this book to fans of YA paranormal romances. 
adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

 ๐Ÿฆ… One of my all-time favorite dystopian fanatsies is โ€˜The Hunger Gamesโ€™ Trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

๐Ÿฆ… This particular series is on top of literally ALL of my lists - best dystopian fantasies, best YA books, God Tier books, best trilogies ever and so many more! And why should it not be? In a way, it is actually a โ€˜classicโ€™ for dystopian literature.

๐Ÿฆ… But before I write anything about the book, I would like brief you about what dystopian literature is, for those of you whoโ€™re new to this genre. Dystopian fantasies are stories that are set in a world that is the same world as the Earth or at least resembles it but something has happened, so everything has gone crap and everything is the least ideal that it can possibly be! So dystopia is the opposite of utopia. (Makes sense ๐Ÿ˜‚?).

๐Ÿฆ… YA Dystopia kinda started with โ€˜The Hunger Gamesโ€™. The concept of it is so unique, so cool and also quite terrifying  but really well executed!

๐Ÿฆ… It was also one of the first books to have given me a massive book hangover.  (Book hangover : (noun) is that feeling when a reader finishes a book and they just can't stop thinking about the fictional world that has run out of pages.)

๐Ÿฆ… The first book definitely gave me a book hangover, but it was really the second book, โ€˜Catching Fireโ€™, that caused me to go into serious, serious, like โ€œI have problemsโ€ kind of hangover because that whole ending just left me paralysed and in desperate need of finding what happens next. So basically after I read this, I immediately went out and bought โ€˜Mockingjayโ€™ because there was no way I was gonna live life even for a second without knowing whatโ€™s next. 
adventurous emotional medium-paced

โšœ๏ธ ๐‘ฑ๐’‚๐’…๐’† ๐‘ญ๐’Š๐’“๐’† ๐‘ฎ๐’๐’๐’… by ๐‘ฑ๐’–๐’๐’† ๐‘ช๐‘ณ ๐‘ป๐’‚๐’

โšœ๏ธ :: ๐‘ฉ๐’๐’๐’Œ ๐‘น๐’†๐’—๐’Š๐’†๐’˜ ::

โšœ๏ธ I absolutely adored this book and itโ€™s a perfect pick for fans of East Asian inspired fantasies. Thereโ€™s lots of elemental magic and kind of the โ€œchosen oneโ€ trope in this book as well. The main romance in this book is much like that of Zuko and Katara from Avatar, so if you liked that, youโ€™ll love Jade Fire Gold. The main characters, Ahn and Altan, end up lost in the desert without their parents as children but Ahn is actually an important noble familyโ€™s daughter and Altan is a lost prince. They have one of those โ€˜your fates are tied togetherโ€™ moments and then itโ€™s a while until they meet again. Ahn is a lovable little stubborn creature who believes the best in people for the most part while Altan has his heart in the right place but he needs a shouting at. At first theyโ€™re playful and fairly flirty, then they end up being super sassy towards each other and eventually it develops into a sweet mutual caring for each other.

โšœ๏ธ Among the side characters, Tang Wei was my favourite. She is such an adorable little assassin and Ahn describes her as her as โ€œa violent, glorious roar of wind and water that turns everything upside down and leaves you standing in awe of its raw beauty.โ€

โšœ๏ธ June covers colonialism in this world too, in keeping with the idea - โ€œHistory is never written by its victims.โ€ Itโ€™s something that will make you think, and I think thatโ€™s so unique in a YA book. Family is a super important element to in this book too. There are reunited families and truths discovered with some emphasis on found family.

โšœ๏ธ I also loved Jade Fire Gold because every characters is so realistic and has light and dark elements to them. For me, this didnโ€™t read like a debut novel at all. It was very fast paced in some places but I feel like that was more because I absolutely HAD to keep reading! June has become an auto-buy author for me ๐Ÿคญ and I canโ€™t wait to read the sequel. 
adventurous funny medium-paced

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿป โ€œ๐™๐™๐™š ๐™ฌ๐™ค๐™ง๐™ก๐™™ ๐™ ๐™š๐™š๐™ฅ๐™จ ๐™ค๐™ฃ ๐™˜๐™๐™–๐™ฃ๐™œ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ, ๐™—๐™ช๐™ฉ ๐™ฉ๐™๐™š๐™ง๐™š ๐™ž๐™จ ๐™–๐™ก๐™ฌ๐™–๐™ฎ๐™จ ๐™จ๐™ค๐™ข๐™š๐™ฉ๐™๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ, ๐™จ๐™ค๐™ข๐™š๐™ฌ๐™๐™š๐™ง๐™š, ๐™ฉ๐™๐™–๐™ฉ ๐™ง๐™š๐™ข๐™–๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™จ ๐™ฉ๐™๐™š ๐™จ๐™–๐™ข๐™š.โ€

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿป I feel the best way to get out of a reading slump is re-reading some of your childhood favourites : the books that made you fall in love with reading in the very first place. Iโ€™ve tried that a few times and it has helped me rediscover my love for reading.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿป Ruskin Bond is such an incredible author and I absolutely adore his books! Rusty is a very popular and beloved character created by him, who is basically a young version of the author himself. Bond narrates a slightly fictionalised version of his childhood through Rustyโ€™s adventures and theyโ€™re so engaging and captivating to read.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿป I remember listening to Bondโ€™s stories from my Junior School Librarian and what an outstanding narrator she was! She literally brought the stories to life through her style of narration, with voice modulations, her innumerable facial expressions and intonations. That was where I first met Rusty.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿป Rusty is a young boy who lives with his grandparents in Dehra Dun (a hill station in India). Though he is not the adventurous himself, the strangest and most extraordinary things keep happening around him.

Their house in Dehra is full of strange creatures. Rusty has to deal with everything from his grandfatherโ€™s pet python, a hysterical monkey, to the ever-inventive Uncle Ken. His early childhood stories are the ones I enjoy the most because it includes incidents with animals, of the strangest kind, not just your usual cats and dogs. Thereโ€™s something about books that have animal descriptions that really enamour me, which is why I love Gerald Durrellโ€™s stories too.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿป But Rustyโ€™s character actually develops from early childhood to his early teens as the stories progress. So in a way, I literally grew up with Rusty, and he was one of the most relatable characters Iโ€™ve ever read. 
adventurous medium-paced

I try a lot of debut novels and I started the month with the book, โ€˜Cold the Night, Fast the Wolvesโ€™ which released in January 2022.

โ˜•๏ธ ๐“œ๐“ฒ๐“ท๐“ฒ ๐“ก๐“ฎ๐“ฟ๐“ฒ๐“ฎ๐”€ :

โ€˜Cold the Night, Fast the Wolvesโ€™ is a fast-paced, heart-pounding dystopian fantasy written by the very talented Meg Long. The character development and world building are just right to keep you from feeling overwhelmed and to make you feel invested in each individual. It's refreshing to read a book where the heroine isn't empowered to save the world by a heterosexual love interest. Instead, it concentrates on the development of a friendship between a fiercely independent girl and a she-wolf, as well as how they survive together and develop trust in one another. This book is such a wonderful mix of dystopian, science fiction and adventure. I would recommend it to everyone, even if you aren't normally into dystopian YA. 
adventurous fast-paced

 ๐Ÿ‘ โ€œ๐”—๐”ฅ๐”ข ๐”ช๐”ฌ๐”ฌ๐”ซ ๐”ฒ๐”ซ๐”ก๐”ข๐”ฏ๐”ฐ๐”ฑ๐”ž๐”ซ๐”ก๐”ฐ ๐”ด๐”ฅ๐”ž๐”ฑ ๐”ฆ๐”ฑ ๐”ช๐”ข๐”ž๐”ซ๐”ฐ ๐”ฑ๐”ฌ ๐”Ÿ๐”ข ๐”ฅ๐”ฒ๐”ช๐”ž๐”ซ. ๐”˜๐”ซ๐” ๐”ข๐”ฏ๐”ฑ๐”ž๐”ฆ๐”ซ, ๐”ž๐”ฉ๐”ฌ๐”ซ๐”ข, ๐” ๐”ฏ๐”ž๐”ฑ๐”ข๐”ฏ๐”ข๐”ก ๐”Ÿ๐”ถ ๐”ฆ๐”ช๐”ญ๐”ข๐”ฏ๐”ฃ๐”ข๐” ๐”ฑ๐”ฆ๐”ฌ๐”ซ๐”ฐ.โ€

๐Ÿ‘ โ€˜Shatter Meโ€™ is a YA dystopian fantasy and the first book in a hexalogy, which centers on Juliette Ferras, a 17-year-old girl with a lethal touch.

๐Ÿ‘ ::: ๐“‘๐“ธ๐“ธ๐“ด ๐“ป๐“ฎ๐“ฟ๐“ฒ๐“ฎ๐”€ :::

โ€˜Shatter Meโ€™ is such a refreshing dystopian fantasy and I really loved reading it. The series deals with a girl who has been imprisoned for all her life and she canโ€™t touch people because if she does, sheโ€™ll kill them. The books follow her story and itโ€™s really cool. Thereโ€™s something about MCs with unique powers that I absolutely love and this series does it really well.

The writing style is very unique and you have to kind of get used to it. Itโ€™s very metaphorical and also whimsical which is really interesting for a dystopian. 
adventurous medium-paced

โณ โ€œ๐’ด๐‘œ๐“Š ๐’น๐‘œ๐“ƒโ€™๐“‰ ๐“€๐“ƒ๐‘œ๐“Œ ๐’ท๐“‡๐‘œ๐“€๐‘’๐“ƒ๐“ƒ๐‘’๐“ˆ๐“ˆ. ๐’ฉ๐‘œ๐“‰ ๐“Š๐“ƒ๐“‰๐’พ๐“ ๐“‰๐’ฝ๐‘’ ๐“…๐‘’๐“‡๐“ˆ๐‘œ๐“ƒ ๐“Ž๐‘œ๐“Š ๐“๐‘œ๐“‹๐‘’ ๐“‰๐’ฝ๐‘’ ๐“‚๐‘œ๐“ˆ๐“‰ ๐’พ๐“ƒ ๐“‰๐’ฝ๐‘’ ๐“Œ๐‘œ๐“‡๐“๐’น ๐’น๐’พ๐‘’๐“ˆ ๐’พ๐“ƒ ๐“Ž๐‘œ๐“Š๐“‡ ๐’ถ๐“‡๐“‚๐“ˆ.โ€

โณ โ€˜Everlessโ€™ by Sara Holland was definitely a book whose name intrigued me into reading it.
It was the first time I had encountered the word โ€œeverlessโ€ and it felt so unique โœจ!

โณ ::: ๐“‘๐“ธ๐“ธ๐“ด ๐“ป๐“ฎ๐“ฟ๐“ฒ๐“ฎ๐”€ :::

โ€˜Everlessโ€™ is a fascinating and gripping story which follows a girl called Jules who lives in a world where time is money, literally. Those who are poor won't live very long and the rich aristocracy tax them to the hilt, extending their own lives by centuries.

I admired this creative idea and I must admit that Sarah Holland's execution is flawless. Jules is a strong heroine who loves with all her heart and is extremely generous. She will go far to save the people she cares about and I loved her fierce personality. I really liked her character and was captivated by her difficult situation from the start. I also loved the friendship between Jules and Caro and was so not expecting the turn of events!

The world building is incredible and the mesmerising descriptive writing makes the story come to life in a terrific raw way. Jules lives in a twisted and cruel world and Sara Holland perfectly describes every aspect of her perilous and heartbreaking existence. She also divides the tension very tactfully, which makes โ€˜Everlessโ€™ a fabulous story to read. This spellbinding book kept me on the edge of my seat right from the start!