*All the Banana* Predictions and Forecasts! #2

Do you guys remember me doing this post previously? Nah- neither did I. I took *way too long* to get round to reading all my predicted 5* reads- but I’ve finally done it! So, even if this is far less relevant than it was supposed to be, I’m going to update you:

Dark Age– as predicted, this was a massive success! I love this series and this one seriously raised the stakes. I can’t wait for the finale.

Wayward Son– also a success! Very different to the first and somewhat meandering… and yet it worked for me. It moved the plot in an interesting direction- looking forward to seeing what that is!

Ninth House– a fair 4* read. This didn’t have much in common with Bardugo’s other work and it was good to see the author branch out.

Crowfall– obviously a success 😉 This grimdark series was great. Beyond its vivid writing and world building, it had a strong emotional heart.

Night Country– not quite as sensational as Hazel Wood, though I did enjoy reading it. And I still have faith in the author and am looking forward to reading Tales of the Hinterland soon.

Starsight– 4*. While I didn’t fall for this quite as much as the first, this was a solid sequel. The spy subplot is not my favourite direction the story could have taken. I feel like *spoilers for book 1* finding out all of humanity is locked up in a prison, should make you feel small and powerless. And this didn’t do that, so it didn’t quite land for me.

Call Down the Hawk– this one could’ve gone either way. And as always, I did appreciate Stiefvater’s beautiful writing. It just didn’t quite blow me away.

Dispel Illusion– another success. Plus, I don’t need to time travel to tell you I enjoyed the trilogy’s conclusion as well. There can be no illusion that I enjoyed this sci fi series.

The Secret Commonwealth– either this was a very long short story or I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to read this… or both. Regardless it wasn’t five stars.

Small Spaces– I’ve read the first two in this series and gave them both 4 bananas. They were somewhat unsettling but also felt safely MG- definitely glad I picked them up.

And that’s all for my updates! Time to make some new predictions!

I decided this time around to go for books I’ve been planning to read for ages and already own, so hopefully it won’t take as long to get to! (barring any other unforeseen events that stop me reading again). Without further ado, here they are:

And one bonus book that’s not out yet:

Phew! Finally done this post! Hopefully next time I won’t take years to do a follow up 😉 Now want to know- have you read any of these books? Were they five stars for you? What books do you predict being your next five star reads? Let me know in the comments!

5 Star Predictions

(or rather books I think will get all the bananas)

I’ve seen this around quite a bit and I love the idea… even though this is probably a bad plan cos I don’t usually like to hype things up in my mind. Still, I reckon these are books where I can’t help but think I’m going to love them or at the very least really, really enjoy them. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Strange the Dreamer– I actually own this book and have for a while- still not read it yet, partly because I’m rereading her other series, but mostly because I think it’s going to be amazing and I want to devour it all in one go.

Book of Dust– Ditto- I own this, but am scared to start it. This is pretty much guaranteed 5 bananas from me, just because I am SO GRATEFUL to Pullman for writing this companion book to one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE series. (In case you can’t tell I’m excited for this!)

Wolf By Wolf- Annnnd yes I own this too. In fact I put it on my tbr, because I saw Kat’s  awesome review and thought “I’m gonna love this”. It’s been sitting on my kindle since then and I haven’t picked it up for two reasons 1) I think I’ll love it and as you might be able to tell from the last two books on here, I have a tendency to save books I think I’m going to really love because if I read it, it’ll be over, then where will I be?) and 2) because as much as I want to read it the subject matter is a *little* off-putting- so this is probably the one on the list that’s most likely to be hit or miss.

Iron Gold– Okay- finally a book on here I don’t own… But that’s only cos it’s not out yet 😉 I am so PSYCHED for this though and I literally cannot wait to get my hands on it (knowing me though, I’ll buy it straightaway and then leave it on my shelf till the rest of the series gets released #standard)

Girl in the Tower– I know it’s getting to the point where I mention this every few posts, but I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS! (I seriously need to write my review already to explain WHY exactly I am freakin’ crazy over this series… ah well, you’ll have to wait and see) Either way- can’t wait to get my mitts on this!

And that’s it! Also what book on your TBR do you think you’re likely to give 5 stars too? Let me know in the comments!

Books With A Predictive Function

Hello all! Just a quick post today as I thought I’d share what I think are the most prophetic books ever written. Cos sometimes all I want to do is plug some of my favourite books and hail authors as geniuses. And no, these are not my spooky predictions for the future, because the events of these books have already come to pass. So I promise that none of this will happen again… (I hope).

1984 – Yes, yes, I basically created this list because I finally wrote my review for this book the other day and the thought of this coming true is still fresh in my mind. Of course, Orwell’s novel in part relates to the tragedy of communist experiment unfolding at the time of writing, which somewhat takes away its “predictive function”, yet the fear that this could re-emerge in the future is evident in how many times lately we’ve heard the phrase “it’s like 1984”. *Shudders all round*.

War of the Worlds – Whenever I think of “author turned prophet” I think of H G Wells, because man I’m not kidding, you can find *a ton* of his predictions online that came true (including the atom bomb). The reason why I’m including this one is mainly cos it’s the only one I’ve read and I enjoyed it so much that I thought now would be a good time to recommend it- but Wells did manage to predict Lasers in this book (published in 1898) which is pretty darn cool if you ask me.

Notes from the Underground – Did he define the 19^th century man or undermine it? Is Dostoevsky foretelling the collapse of humanism or simply bearing witness? Hard to tell- but one can be certain that there is an eye to the future in all of Dostoevsky’s works. Not least in the way he (using Nietsche as a guide) practically predicted the Soviet Union- however there is a better example of that in…

The Trial – It’s *freaky* how similar the surreal world Kafka presents is to Solzhenitsyn’s real life descriptions. I swear that before I began reading Gulag Archipelago I did not see an ounce of realism in this story. Oh how I wish that was still the case. And speaking of reality…

Fahrenheit 451 – Okay, so I’m cheating with this one, because this book is more reflective of Nazism than reinventing the wheel. However, I cannot help but praise its genius for the way it captures elements of history and transposes them onto the future. The possibility of this happening again is, horrifyingly, all too real.  If you want to hear more of my thoughts on this a-m-a-z-i-n-g book, you can check out my review here.

Phew! That was a pretty gloomy post! Have you read any of these? Do you have any more suggestions for eerily prophetic books? Let me know in the comments!