‘Take No More’ by Seb Kirby

I did not buy this. In fact, it was one of a bundle of three books by Seb Kirby that I won at the village quiz raffle.

On the blurb it says:

A fast-paced and highly original crime thriller set in the art world, perfect for fans of Dan Brown and Harlan Coben.

It is not original, sorry Seb, sister in trouble finds out she has an identical twin and they swap identities to escape the mafia. That’s not original.

I gave this book two out of five stars, it probably deserved less, but I’m reluctant to give people who actually make the effort to write a book less than two stars.

It was poorly written, unoriginal and I did very well to complete it. Maybe that should go on the blurb!

This, together with the unread two, will be going to a charity shop.

‘Sweet Sorrow’ by David Nichols

Everyone likes David Nicholls.

This novel is good.

Two teenagers meet in an amateur dramatic company that is about to put on Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – you can probably see where this going – it’s better than you’d imagine.

Well worth a read.

‘Alone on the Wall’ by Alex Honnold’

A book about climbing. I watched a documentary on TV about Alex Honnold, an American free-solo climber.

I thought the book might go into a bit more detail about the man himself. It didn’t really. There was a lot of ‘we climbed a mountain’ and ‘it was a 5.12a difficulty’ and ‘we got the speed record’. But I don’t really know more about him than I did originally.

I’m sure that if you are into climbing you would enjoy it more than me. I didn’t really enjoy it.

‘Day One’ by Abigail Dean

I really didn’t like this book – I never actually got into it at all. I finished it, but only because I rarely give up on a book.

It’s about a school shooting. The actually incident itself is never explained in detail, the book is more about the effect on individuals and the community.

It follows a couple of characters: Marty, a girl involved in the shooting (or not); and Trent, another local who believes the whole thing is a bunch of lies.

I found the book quite confusing at times, it jumps between characters and moments in time, which normally I’m ok with, but with this I never felt comfortable reading. I just found it all a bit hard work.

‘The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh’ by Helen Rutter

It was another teenage novel.

Billy Plimpton wants to be a stand-up comedian, but he thinks something is stopping him: his stammer.

We follow Billy has he deals with bullies, a dying grandma and girls. The book culminates in an end of year talent show that doesn’t go to plan.

If I was an 11 or 12 year old, I’d love the book!

Also, each chapter starts with a joke. Nice.

The past, the present and the future walked into a bar.

It was tense.

‘Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black’ by Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick and Alexis Deacon

I read this because it was partly written by Marcus Sedgwick, he writes YA fiction and is always very good.

This book is a slight detour from his normal stuff, as it was for me. The title was a big clue – not my normal read – but always good to have a go of something different.

Teaming up with his brother Julian and artist Alexis Deacon, this novel brings together prose, poetry and illustration as it follows the story of two brothers in WWII.

It was all a bit too dreamlike and strange for me. The ‘real’ parts were brilliantly written, just too much of the weird stuff for me.