July 2024

Book Reviews

july book review covers

Shantaram

by

Gregory David Roberts

shantaram book cover

Rating: 5 ★

Genre: Autobiography, Adventure Fiction

Synopsis: An epic adventure that follows a bank robber who escapes from prison, flees to India and builds an entirely new life in Bombay. This part-fiction autobiography is a retelling of a vibrant life packed full of war, love, friendship, heartbreak, addiction, loss and hope. This book left me utterly distraught in all the best ways.

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Project Hail Mary

by

Andy Weir

project hail mary book cover

Rating: 5 ★

Genre: Science Fiction

Synopsis: In a tragic turn of events, Earth’s last Hail Mary to save the entire species is a man who wakes up on a spaceship with amnesia and no one else except two dead colleagues. Project Hail Mary is a surprisingly heartwarming and tender sci-fi mystery that had me intrigued and invested from the get-go.

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Next to You

by

Hannah Bonam-Young

next to you book cover

Rating: 4.5 ★

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis: Finally, a friends-to-lovers story that is actually done well. Matt and Lane have been friends for years but their relationship takes a turn when Matt agrees to help her revamp an old school bus in exchange for her help with rebranding his mechanic business. The pining in this was constructed to perfection and the chemistry between these characters was impeccable.

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Not in Love

by

Ali Hazelwood

not in love book cover

Rating: 4 ★

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis: Forgettable plot but memorable vibes. If you need a book to completely switch your brain off and engulf your attention, this will do it. Believe it or not, I mean that as a compliment.

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Reckless

by

Lauren Roberts

reckless book cover

Rating: 4 ★

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult Fiction

Synopsis: Reckless is the sequel to Powerless, which is a deadly trial plotline set in a fantasy landscape that is very reminiscent of The Hunger Games. Highly entertaining, fast-paced, full of action and packed with great banter between the MMC and FMC.

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Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts Review

shantaram book cover

Rating: 5 ★

Genre: Autobiography, Adventure Fiction

Fair warning: Shantaram is not a light read. This book took me an age to get through. Not because it’s not enjoyable or gripping, but because it’s dense and deserves to be savoured. I honestly feel like it would be utterly diabolical to give Shantaram anything but 5 stars.

The sheer beauty of the writing is enough to knock the wind from your chest. Never mind the vastness of emotion it conveys with exquisite eloquence or the spectrum of lives the character leads.

The retrospective nature of the storytelling means that you’re always exposed to a raw sense of foreboding. Every time a terrible decision is made, you’re clued in on the impact it will have, which means that you’re never shielded from the expanse of future suffering.

Reading Shantaram is a satisfying kind of pain – like prodding a bruise. It shines a spotlight on how permanent our mistakes can be. In a more idealised and less realistic story, the character has the opportunity to right his wrongs but we don’t get that luxury here. It’s chafed wounds and the perseverance of reaching for hope even when the wrongs can never be fixed.

I know that all sounds rather morbid and maybe I’m misrepresenting the majority of the story in that sense because there are also plenty of highs. It’s overflowing with tenderness and a love for humanity. The way that Shantaram celebrates human connection is unmatched.

Needless to say, I think it’s well worth the read. You may feel gutted and angered at times but meeting Karla will likely alter your brain chemistry for the better (or worse…yeah probably worse). Still worth it.

“‘Is he afraid of you?’ I asked, smiling.

‘Yes, I think he is, a little bit. That’s one of the reasons I like him. I could never respect a man who didn’t have the good sense to be at least a little bit afraid of me.'”

“If fate doesn’t make you laugh, then you just don’t get the joke.”

“Love is the opposite of power. That’s why we fear it so much.”

“Her eyes were reef-green, flecked with gold, and they shone with the luminous intensity that’s usually a sign of suffering or intelligence, or both.”

“It is always a fool’s mistake to be alone with someone you shouldn’t have loved.”

“Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.”

“There’s only courage and fear and love. And war kills them all, one by one. Glory belongs to God, of course; that’s what the word really means. And you can’t serve God with a gun.”

“A man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. Until you can do that, you’re not a man.”

“For them, food is music inside the body, and music is food inside the heart.”

“Fear dries a man’s mouth, and hate strangles him. That’s why hate has no great literature: real fear and real hate have no words.”

“It isn’t a secret, unless keeping it hurts.”

“Her eyes were large and spectacularly green. It was the green that trees are, in vivid dreams. It was the green that the sea would be, if the sea were perfect.”

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir Review

project hail mary book cover

Rating: 5 ★

Genre: Science Fiction

Ryland Grace doesn’t volunteer to save Earth. And yet he still wakes up to find himself on a spaceship with absolutely no recollection of his mission or why he, of all people, was entrusted with the survival of his species. When he wakes, he needs to systematically make sense of his surroundings and his purpose on the spaceship while he slowly recovers his memories.

Project Hail Mary is part science fiction, part mystery and part comedy (at least in my opinion). It’s a story of what happens when you put a very unheroic character in the position of the saviour. It explores unexpected friendships and the hilarity of logistically navigating new situations while slowly unravelling the mystery of what happened on Earth prior to him being launched into the ether – and why he was chosen.

I am by no means a scientist, or anything close to it, but I do come from a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) background and I have to say that being inside someone else’s brain while they’re in problem-solving mode for science and engineering was disturbingly fun. I’m probably exposing myself and my lack of an eventful life a bit here, but I was positively entranced by a character doing little tests and explaining his thought process.

If there is any part of you that is interested in the premise of this story or in sci-fi in general, I would highly recommend this. I listened to it on Audible and can confirm that the narration is brilliant. It’s surprisingly heartwarming in all the best ways and just an absolute joy from start to finish.

“‘I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe.’

‘You poked it with a stick?’

‘No!’ I said. ‘Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.'”

“Humans have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.”

“I gasped. ‘Wait a minute! Am I a guinea pig? I’m a guinea pig!’

‘No, it’s not like that,’ she said.

I stared at her.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

‘Okay, it’s exactly like that,’ she said.”

“I spend a lot of time un-suiciding this suicide mission.”

“When stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas.”

Next to You by Hannah Bonam-Young Review

next to you book cover

Rating: 4.5 ★

Genre: Contemporary Romance

The first half of this book had me in a chokehold. I don’t know what it was about the chemistry between Matt and Lane but I could not put it down. The repartee was so disarmingly charming that I was able to completely forget that I usually hate the friends-to-lovers trope.

Genuinely, this book was a 5-star read for me up until around the 70% mark. After that, it gets a bit sappy and romantic and just very much not to my taste. Of course, that’s not the book’s problem, that’s a me problem – I just don’t do well with happy endings that are too extravagant. If I was more of a big-grand-gesture kind of person, this probably would’ve been a 5-star read all around for me. Unfortunately, I have the mind of a gremlin and the ending was like a mouthful of chalk.

Even so, this was brilliant and Hannah Bonam-Young seems to have a special talent for making me love books even when they are flooded with tropes that I hate. Out on a Limb is another great example of that. I despise the pregnancy trope with every fibre of my soul but somehow that book was a winner.

“‘Are you flirting with me?’ I ask.

His soft, single laugh surprises me. ‘For more than a year now. Thanks for noticing.'”

“The bastard disarmed me with lulling touches. Clever man. Worthy opponent.”

“‘He has no pitcures of him hunting, fishing, half-naked at a club, or holding up money.’

‘The bar for men is in hell.'”

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood Review

not in love book cover

Rating: 4 ★

Genre: Contemporary Romance

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Ali Hazelwood. I love how fast-paced and addictive her books are, but I hate how often I find the characters to be incredibly annoying and the plot to be weak. Although, I will say that Bride was a very distinctive turning point for me and right when I was about to give up on Ali Hazelwood as a whole, Bride came along and knocked it out of the park. Well, at least the first 80% of it did – the rest of Bride was very obviously written for an audience that I was not a part of.

But anyway, this isn’t about Bride, it’s about Not in Love, which was another happy surprise. The same love-hate dynamic was present (reads like an illegal substance but with cringy characters and a forgettable plot) but in this case, the characters were my particular flavour of cringe. There was something about the socially challenged and borderline robotic woman being wholly accepted as is that struck a cord.

And yes, Eli’s character serves no other purpose than to be utterly obsessed with Rue from day one. But my God, he does it well. If we all have our own brand of embarrassment, I guess this is mine because I really enjoyed this. 

“‘And she obviously has that energy you like-‘

Eli had laughed. ‘The energy I like?’

‘Hyper-competent. Mysterious. ‘I scored better than you on the quiz, and I could kill you with a pencil’ energy.'”

“I forget to look at other things, when you’re around.”

Reckless by Lauren Roberts Review

reckless book cover

Rating: 4 ★

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult Fiction

Reckless is book two in the Powerless trilogy and honestly, the quickest way for me to describe this is to say it’s basically The Hunger Games but with magic. Obviously, it’s not exactly the same, but there are enough similarities for it to be a pretty good synopsis of what to expect in the series.

However, as much as I did thoroughly enjoy Powerless, I don’t mean that Powerless is on par with The Hunger Games in terms of quality and depth (it’s not as good, in my opinion). It shares similar themes like a deadly competition, an “underdog” FMC, winning the favours of the upper class to survive, an underground rebellion, two love interests, etc.

Beyond being extremely entertaining, this series stands out with its character relationships and the banter between Paedyn and Kai. The back and forth is fantastic, the romance embedded in Kai’s POV is delicious and his words are borderline poetic.

Powerless spoilers after this point!

 

In Reckless, we get a captivating hunter-hunted dynamic where Kai is tasked to hunt down Paedyn after she murders the king in book one. I enjoyed the desert landscape setting, loved all the action scenes and the plot was fun. There is also a plot twist at the end, which I did kind of see coming, but it was enough of a twist for me to be very curious about the final instalment of the trilogy.

Overall, I had an absolutely grand time reading this. It’s by no means some high-class literature but that’s not why I choose books like this.

“You cannot be nothing when you are everything to someone else.”

“My blood is only useful if it can manage to stay inside my body. My mind is only useful if it can manage to not get lost. My heart is only useful if it can manage to not get broken. Well, it seems I’ve become utterly useless, then.”

Have you read any of the books? What are your thoughts on them? Let me know in the comments below 🙂