Summer Reading | Book Review #01

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Good news - I managed to reach my goal of reading five books in July and I've even almost made up for my lack of reading in June! Yippee! So as I promised, here are reviews of the books I read while I was away on holiday. Brace yourself, there'll be quite a few! However what I think I might do is group books from one series into one review rather than writing a separate review for each book in a series.

TITLE The Summer I Turned Pretty

AUTHOR Jenny Han

RATING 2/5

Everything that happened this past summer, and every summer before it, has all led up to this. To now. Every year Isabel spends a perfect summer at her family friends' house. There's the swimming pool at night, the private stretch of sandy beach . . . and the two boys. Unavailable, aloof Conrad - who she's been in love with forever - and friendly, relaxed Jeremiah, the only one who's ever really paid her any attention. But this year something is different. They seem to have noticed her for the first time. It's going to be an amazing summer - and one she'll never forget . . .

In my opinion, the main character of the story seemed too young for me to be able to relate to the story line in any way which is something I feel makes a good book. It's not always the case but I find that the books I enjoy reading most are the books where I can relate to the character. I'll admit now that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped I would. Despite this however I found myself still wanting to read the next book of the series.

TITLE I Am Malala

AUTHOR Malala Yousafzai

RATING 3/5

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.  Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. 'I Am Malala' will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world.

I Am Malala is one of the books that featured on my reading wish list after I spotted it one day while browsing in Waterstones. It tells the unbelievable but true story of Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head purely for standing up for girls' right to an education and how this has impacted her life. This book was truly eye opening and very different from the sort of thing I'd usually read, and I'd highly recommend it to others.

TITLE Loving Mr Daniels

AUTHOR Brittainy C. Cherry

RATING 5/5

To Whom it May Concern, 

It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates. When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss. When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons. 

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours. 

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels. 

-Ashlyn Jennings

I loved this book. I would leave it at that but then I feel it wouldn't be a very credible review. This book features so many emotions that every single person can relate to; love, loss, fear, upset, joy, happiness, hurt. The list is endless. It deals with a variety of situations, all of which are very real in people's lives today, making it is so easy to relate to the characters. This book had me laughing out loud, smiling from ear to ear, and weeping my heart out. It's been a long time since I've read a book that has truly made me cry but this one succeeded in that. Definitely worth reading and perfect for curling up with on a rainy day.

TITLE Silence and Broken Silence

AUTHOR Natasha Preston

OVERALL RATING 3/5

For eleven years, Oakley Farrell has been silent. At the age of five, she stopped talking, and no one seems to know why. Refusing to communicate beyond a few physical actions, Oakley remains in her own little world. 

Bullied at school, she has just one friend, Cole Benson. Cole stands by her, refusing to believe that she is not perfect the way she is. Over the years, they have developed their own version of a normal friendship. However, will it still work as they start to grow even closer? 

When Oakley is forced to face someone from her past, can she hold her secret in any longer?

So I've only given you the blurb for the first book as I feel the blurb for the second book totally gives everything away. Once again, I didn't enjoy the first book but found myself wanting to continue and read the second one which I enjoyed much more. I cannot stand not finishing a book that I've started, even if I'm really not enjoying it at all! The first book very much focuses on the relationship between Oakley and Cole, and is very slow to get started. The second book however is much better, focusing more on what happened in Oakley's past, and the repercussions of it now. This is a tricky one because I wouldn't recommend the first book however I would recommend the second one so whether you read Silence first is completely up to you! One issue I had with both books was the awful grammatical mistakes which, once I noticed them, were extremely difficult to ignore.

TITLE Bridget Jones' Diary, The Edge of Reason, and Mad About the Boy

AUTHOR Helen Fielding

OVERALL RATING 4/5

I have chosen not to include a blurb for these books as I feel that essentially the blurb does not do any of these books justice. Having already seen the films of the first two books in the Bridget Jones' Diary series, I will admit I only read them so that I could read the third book. After hearing about the outcry of one of the events in the third book, I was tempted to go straight in and start reading from that point but then decided I would rather just read the first two in order to get the full story as it is never a good idea to rely fully on the film. I'm really pleased that I decided to read the first two books though because I found myself constantly laughing out loud. They made for perfect reading by the poolside and on the beach and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I wasn't very keen on the third book to start with but by about a quarter of the way through it I began to warm to it. Not only was the series an enjoyable holiday read but I also became aware of just how alike I am to Bridget Jones... whether that is a good or a bad thing though I've not quite figured out!

TITLE The Rescue

AUTHOR Nicholas Sparks

OVERALL RATING 4/5

When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: he can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over and the relationship starts to become truly intimate. When a raging storm hits his small Southern town, single mother Denise Holton’s car skids off the road. The young mom is with her four-year-old son Kyle, a boy with severe learning disabilities and for whom she has sacrificed everything. Taylor McAden finds her unconscious and bleeding, but does not find Kyle. When Denise wakes, the chilling truth becomes clear to both of them: Kyle is gone. During the search for Kyle, the connection between Taylor and Denise takes root. Taylor doesn't know that this rescue will be different from all the others, demanding far more than raw physical courage. It will lead him to the possibility of his own rescue from a life lived without love and will require him to open doors to his past that were slammed shut by pain. This rescue will dare him to live life to the fullest by daring to love.

Truthfully the majority of Nicholas Sparks' books make me shed a tear or two and this one was no different but maybe I'm just an emotional sop! I wasn't all that sure about The Rescue when I first started it unlike his other books that I've been hooked on after the first page but I certainly ended up hooked on this one by the third or fourth page. I am a total sucker for a good romance novel, especially when I'm enjoying the sun on holiday, so this one was ideal for me. It's definitely worth reading some of his books, including Safe Haven and The Lucky One.

What have your summer reads been? Any recommendations?