Book Review 012

Hey guys! I am back with another book review. These are the books that I’ve read since finished the Throne of Glass series in mid-October. I’ve started a book journal recently so I’m hoping that it will be easier for me to write my reviews now. So let’s get into the books.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

So if you guys didn’t watch my Vlogtober videos, you might have missed that I recently purchased a bunch of classic novels. I was drawn by the beautiful covers, but I also haven’t read many classics so I decided to purchase 11 lol. I choose Frankenstein as the first one to read since it was October and I wanted something for the spooky season.

I’ve heard of Frankenstein is passing but I didn’t know the actual story. For those who also don’t know, Frankenstein is a Swiss scientist who creates this creature who wreaks havoc on Frankenstein’s life (Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster). So I enjoyed learning the actual story. There are so great lessons to learn from the novel, and I also liked how the story ended. But that’s where my positives end.

I wasn’t very engaged while reading Frankenstein. I often found myself taking phone breaks, something I don’t normally do. I also fell asleep once while reading the novel. I found that they were too many descriptive passage and long monologues that didn’t add anything to the storyline.

When reading a horror, thriller, or mystery, predictable is an important aspect. I don’t mind if I can predict the plot twists, but I prefer it when I don’t. I predicted some things and other things I didn’t. So if you are someone who hates predictability, this book was 50/50.

Frankenstein is supposed to be one of the most famous gothic horrors. Now I don’t know much about the genre, but I expected to be scared. Overall I don’t think this is scary by modern standards, but I understand that at the time it could have been radical. Overall though I didn’t satisfy my wish for something scary during the Halloween season.

I give this book a 3/5. I can see why it’s a classic and why people like it. But I wasn’t engaged or scared, two things that I wanted from this book. Fingers crossed that some of my other classics are better than this one.

Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski

I have a very large physical to be read list, with books that I’ve purchased back in middle school on my shelf. This is one of them. I kept this book because I’ve read quite a few other Mlynowski books, with the Bra and Broomsticks series being one of my tween faves. So I decided to give this book a chance.

The story follows Devi, a high school senior who drops her phone in a fountain and can only talk to her freshman self. Devi gives her younger self advice, such as staying away from her ex-boyfriend and how to get good grades. I loved the concept of this novel. Mlynowski took the simple idea of what would you say to your past self and developed into a story. I liked that whenever Devi tried to change the past it had ramifications for her current self, and they were both positive and negative.

I think there are great themes and lessons in this novel. I think they are great for younger readers to read and learn about. I think if I was 14 I would love this book, but a lot of the lessons I’ve just learned myself growing up.

There was also a lot of second-hand embarrassment that is common in younger YA novels. I’m not a huge fan of it. Sure it’s fine in small doses but too much is just too cringy for me. But maybe that’s just my age showing.

This book is also set in the late 2000s/early 2010s, so it was so fun to reach about fashion and technology back then. I grew up during this time so it was fun to reminisce.

I give this book a 3.5/5. I loved this concept and it’s something I will think about in the future. I would recommend this to younger readers, maybe 12-16. If I was younger I think I would enjoy this book more. But at 23 I just couldn’t handle the second-hand embarrassment.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

A nonfiction book for once! I don’t read a ton of nonfiction but I had read amazing things about this book. I also love history so I thought this would be a good read for me. Sapiens is an overview of humankind from our creation to our current times (published in 2014) and also looking at future possibilities.

Now I took a break reading this book when I was about halfway through. I started it back in August, trying to read nonfiction and fiction at the same time. Then I started Throne of Glass and that went out the window. After Gimme a Call I decided to dedicate myself to finishing this book.

First, let’s breakdown the content. I picked up this novel hoping to learn a lot and I honestly knew a lot of what he talked about already. I’ve taken a few anthropology and history courses at university as well as learning many different ideological theories during my studies. Because Harari is covering such a large timespan, he just skims the surface on many different things. I wish he would have dived deeper into certain subjects more. But he does have an in-depth reference list, so I could look at his sources if I want to learn more about a certain subject.

What stands out though is that Harari has a different point of view compared to what I learned in school. So it was interesting because some of what he says is contrary to popular opinion. I also enjoyed his section on happiness because it was one of the few areas I didn’t know anything about it. The only thing is I don’t remember much of what he said. I almost needed to have taken notes to help me absorb some of what he said.

Now let’s breakdown the writing, because I think that’s just as important as the content for nonfiction. I found his writing style to be very straight forward and simple. The times that I didn’t know about something already, it was easy for me to get because it explained it well. I did find it a bit dry though. So the combination of me knowing information and a dry style meant that I wasn’t very excited to read the novel. I set myself daily page goals to get through this book. Nonfiction books can be engaging, but this one just wasn’t it.

So overall I give this book a 3/5. I would say it’s not the most exciting but it is easy to read. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in history but doesn’t know much about it. If you have a moderate knowledge of history and anthropology, then you’ll be like me and be bored.

So guys those are the novels I’ve heard recently. Three very average books. Let me know if the comments what you have read recently and if you have any recommendations. I have a pretty long TBR, but I can always bump books up if you want me to read them sooner. 🙂

xoxo

Lea