Monthly Monkey Mini Review – August

Hello all! Long-time no blog!! As a lot of you know, I’m currently on a blogging break, so haven’t been able to keep up with content much. And while I’m not giving out my current location (cos, erm, I don’t want to end up in a cage for endangered species) I’ll fill in some of the confusion that I probably should have said before I went away. I am not:

• In a prison/zoo
• Dead
• Stuck on Mars

I am, however, volunteering abroad and doing *a lot* of physical work that’s pretty tiring (Eight Days a Week… okay not really, but SIX days a week is still a lot). Anyway, while I’ve been dealing with all the craziness that is my life right now, I’ve been immensely grateful to those of you who’ve stuck around, sent lovely messages and also to all the new folks who helped me hit 4000 FOLLOWERS yesterday. I am speechlessly screaming right now!!! (and the only reason you haven’t seen a crazy bellowing monkey on the news is cos a lot of the people I live with don’t know about the blog and I don’t want to freak them out- though they’re remarkably cool about living with a great ape 😉 ) Thank you guys so much!!

Alrighty then- moving away from the vague life stuff, let’s talk about what’s really important here: what the hell have I been reading. Well, *ahem*, I’m still in a slump, so again I only have a few books to talk about right now and they are…

Love and Gelato– I really enjoyed this one. The characters were great- particularly the hilarious main character, whose voice I immediately fell in love with. It was a sweet romance, even if the plot was a bit obvious. Most of all though, I loved how this felt like walking through Florence, one of my favourite cities, and exploring all the beautiful art (and ice cream) it has to offer.

Rating: 4/5 bananas

Callum– this was a waste of time if you’ve ever read the original book (and I highly recommend you do read Noughts and Crosses instead). Literally nothing happens that the reader doesn’t already know and there’s nothing new from his perspective added into the plot. Seriously, just read the main series. Even though it was pretty pointless, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read. It also didn’t hurt that it was short and I got it on overdrive(aka I didn’t have to buy it), so I gave it:

Rating: 2½/5 bananas

 

Tiny Pretty Things– this wasn’t a terrible book, by any means, I just didn’t enjoy it all that much. A lot of that came down to the fact that I didn’t end up latching onto any of the character’s stories. Perhaps that was because there was simply too much crazy drama- I mean, that’s kind of what you sign up for with a book like this, still this whirl-twirl-leaps to a whole new level of insane.

Rating: 2/5 bananas

 

Truth or Dare– oh boy, I could get in trouble for saying what I have to say here, but I’m gonna go ahead and say them anyway cos I truly think this is constructive criticism. There were several choices that I found off-putting before I even began to read the actual book. The first was the author’s choice of pen name; the second and third were the two apologies issued before the book- one of which instructs the reader to maybe try different books instead. After reading this, I wish I’d followed that advice. So many times while I was reading this I wondered why the hell didn’t I just put this down when I had the chance?  Not only are the apologies a major clue that this is going to be jam packed with virtue signalling, yet they also give a fair warning that *everything* is going to be over-explained. From vlogs to issues with brain injuries- this book is more concerned with info-dumping and getting a message across than telling a story. It was written in such a juvenile way that made it impossible for me to care about the characters. I actually can’t remember much about the leads now that I think about it. The only character that stuck in my head at all was Seren, because she was effing nuts (she gets aggressively upset that someone wants to date her, then pissy when he moves on). Truthfully, I should never have dared go near this one 😉

Rating: 1/5 bananas

 

So yeah, not a great reading month, but I have high hopes for the next one! Anyway, enough about me- how have you all been? Did you have a good reading month? And, as always, have you read any of these? Let me know in the comments!