"to suffer is as human as to breathe"

BOOK REVIEWS | GOODREADS

Book: The Ruinous Sweep by Time Wynn-Jones | My Rating:  ★ ★ ★

Synopsis:  On the night Donovan Turner is thrown out of a car on a highway in the middle of nowhere, he can barely remember his own name, let alone the past twenty-four hours. Where is he? Where is his girlfriend, Bee? In an attempt to flag down the next passing car, he startles the driver, causing a fatal accident. With sirens in the distance and the lingering feeling that he’s running from something — or someone — Donovan grabs the dead driver’s briefcase and flees. Meanwhile, Bee is fighting for Dono’s life every bit as much as he is. But when the police show up and hint that he is the prime suspect in a murder, Bee is determined to put together the pieces of what happened and clear his name. With echoes of Dante’s Divine Comedy, this harrowing journey through hell and back is a page-turning tale of guilt, retribution, love, and redemption.

My Review:  I received this ARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review! I was very curious throughout this book, a boy who's lost his memories, who may be a possible murder suspect? YES. I am really interested in crim and unsolved mysteries, so this type of story is certainly appealing to me. I think my main problem with this book was Donovan's POVs. In the beginning I was pretty invested in his chapters, but as they went on I started thinking 'WHY do we need this aspect?’. Everything did link up in the end, but in particular I felt like his scenes with who I presume was Kali in his room and as he was leaving was unnecessary and had me rolling my eyes. I assume that Donovan's experiences are the Divine Comedy-esque part of the story, and I feel like if I had read the Divine Comedy I would've appreciated this aspect more. I understood what was happening, but honestly after about 120 pages in I was just much more interested in Bee's POV. I did really like the second half of this novel, it was what I was wanting it to be from the beginning- full of mystery solving, tense emotions, and action. This story was face-paced, which I really liked, and full of suspenseful, action-filled scenes. Overall, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either- the second half of the novel bumped my rating from a 2/2.5 stars to a 3 stars.

"When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing."

"Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?."

"Why was it that when noughts committed criminal acts, the fact that they were noughts was always pointed out? The banker was a Cross. The newsreader didn't even mention it."

"I turned my nightmares into fireflies and caught them in a jar."

"His fingers skimmed down her body, over skin and satin, and she shivered, leaning into him, and she was sure they both tasted like blood and ashes and salt, but it didn't matter; the world, the city, and all it's lights and life seemed to have narrowed down to this, just her and Jace, the burning heart of a frozen world."

“But hoping,” he said, “is how the impossible can be possible after all.”

BOOK REVIEWS

Book: The Fever Code by James Dashner | My Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Synopsis: Once there was a world’s end. The forests burned, the lakes and rivers dried up, and the oceans swelled. Then came a plague, and fever spread across the globe. Families died, violence reigned, and man killed man. Next came WICKED, who were looking for an answer. And then they found the perfect boy. The boy’s name was Thomas, and Thomas built a maze. Now there are secrets. There are lies. And there are loyalties history could never have foreseen. This is the story of that boy, Thomas, and how he built a maze that only he could tear down. All will be revealed.

My Review: Let me start off by saying that The Maze Runner is one of my favourite series of all time, so I had extremely high expectations for this prequel, and it definitely reached them. When Dashner first revealed he was going to write this I expected it to be in multiple perspectives, however it is almost all in Thomas’ point of view. Now at first I was a bit sad about this, but it actually gave an interesting perspective at the things going on in the glade before he is sent there.

I want to talk briefly about the characters. In the main series I didn’t like Thomas very much a lot of the time, it was Newt and Minho that made this series one of my favourites, however in this book I loved him. I’m not sure why I had this change of heart; I feel like it was probably to do with that he wasn’t thinking about girls while in the midst of deadly situations. I really enjoyed the motivation he had to pull of the plan he concocted, it really made me love his character. He was just a lonely kid who wanted his friends to be safe. I didn’t like Teresa in the main series that much either aside from a few moments (”Ah, my Knight in Shining Armor. What, you don't think I can fend for myself?”) however throughout most of this book I liked her as well. I really loved the relationship between her and Thomas, as well as between her, Thomas, and Chuck- they were so sweet, like a little family. The best part of this book is that everyone we love is alive! Newt, Chuck, Minho, and Alby are Thomas and Teresa’s best friends and we get to see a lot of them (especially Newt and Chuck). Having the prologue in Newt’s point of view made my heart shatter instantly. Finding out the circumstances of how he was taken by WICKED was absolutely heartbreaking. Newt is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, and seeing him have more and more sadness in his life makes me cry. Newt and Thomas have a close bond both before the maze and after, and Newt is the biggest drive he has behind wanting to help everyone escape WICKED. Their relationship is just precious and I adore them.

WICKED is so cruel and twisted, and it is shown even more so in this book. They torture children and manipulate them into doing what they want, I thought it was interesting to see the power dynamics they used against these kids despite the fact that these kids really aren’t kids, are they? They’re just as much of adults as those working at WICKED, yet are treated severely different. 

All in all, this book was amazing and I loved it- definitely 5/5 stars. This book answers so many questions that the main series didn’t answer,one of the biggest being WHY did WICKED send Thomas and Teresa into the maze if they were so important? As well as giving us a better look at who Dr Paige and WICKED really are. I got a real sense of completeness after finishing this that I didn’t get from the main series because I still had so many questions left. The end of this novel is a game changer, I’m still in shock, and now I need to reread the series to try to comprehend things and see how this changes a lot of aspects of the book. I definitely recommend this to fans of the Maze Runner trilogy, but make sure you read the main series FIRST because this novel will make the main series less suspenseful and take away the element of confusion that you’re supposed to feel if you have not read them already.

I have a lot more specific thoughts and I want to talk more in depth about them, so I will be making a video review as well, so keep a look out for it!

Book: Ruthless by Carolyn Lee Adams | My Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ 

TRIGGER WARNINGS: abduction, mentions/threats of rape

Synopsis: Ruth Carver has always competed like her life depends on it. Ambitious. Tough. Maybe even mean. It’s no wonder people call her Ruthless. When she wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pickup truck, she realizes she has been entered into a contest she can’t afford to lose. At a remote, rotting cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ruth’s blindfold comes off and she comes face-to-face with her captor. A man who believes his mission is to punish bad girls like Ruth. A man who has done this six times before. The other girls were never heard from again, but Ruth won’t go down easy. She escapes into the wilderness, but her hunter is close at her heels. That’s when the real battle begins. That’s when Ruth must decide just how far she’ll go in order to survive. Back home, they called her Ruthless. They had no idea just how right they were.

My Review: This book brought feelings out of me that I’ve never experienced from any book before. If you’re looking for a good survival story this is it. Plus, there’s no Stockholm Syndrome involved in this novel, which I was relieved about.

This book is an excellent story of survival and reads like one: there are beautiful moments that she shares with the moon, her only friend out in the wilderness and the only one who will ever understand, but this story is about escape and the thoughts that come into Ruth’s mind and what keep her going. I want to briefly talk about the two main characters. Ruth Carver is a well developed character, she is tougher than most and proves it over and over again both in the present and in flashbacks that occurred before her abduction. She is strong willed and a winner- she strives to win and won’t settle for anything less. A lot of authors who create characters with these sorts of traits tend to leave it at this: a strong, emotionally cold bad ass. Adams, however, gave Ruth raw emotion. No matter how strong a person she was, she broke down, she panicked, but she managed to overcome her fear and regain control over herself, and at times over others as well. Not only is she set on living, but on bringing justice to the Wolfman for what he’s done to her and the six girls before her. Wolfman is revolting, disturbing, creepy; everything you think of when you think of when you envision a serial-killer/rapist. I felt no sympathy for him at any point, nor does the author try to convince you to feel sorry for him. He is meant to be a sick bastard with no morals and the author does not shy away from showing that. Which is something I liked, I would’ve hated this novel had the author tried to make the reader feel some form of sympathy for him, because in no way, shape, or form would he deserve it. The more I read, the more I hated him.

The entirety of this book is an intense ride, particularly the last thirty pages or so, but the ending was what really got me. It was heartbreaking and incredibly emotional; I was shaking and crying for the last twenty pages or so of this book. In the beginning of the book, I was unsure of what I would rate it by the end; my guess was a 3.5, but the last hundred pages were a game changer and pulled out some of the most fearful and intense feelings I’ve ever felt from a novel. This is a short read (248 pages) and well worth the time.