
This week I decided to complete the entire #MakeYourMythTaker readathon by MythTake Reads! The readathon is based around you choosing your mythical/medieval path and choosing books to fit the prompts. I chose to become a witch, and luckily all of my books were somewhat magical. They also all featured strong, powerful women, which I greatly enjoyed.
Hauled
- The Circle by Dave Eggers – I’ve wanted to read this for a while and bought it second hand!
- Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham
- The Truants by Kate Weinberg (kindle)
- 40-love by Olivia Dade (kindle)
- The Guest List by Lucy Foley (kindle)
Read
- The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin
- All the Bad Apples by Moira Fowley-Doyle
- The Familiars by Stacey Halls
- As Old As Time by Liz Braswell
Reviews
The Wicked Cometh
Rating: 4/5
This book had a pretty slow start, and for the first third of it I was just waiting for the action to begin. I was even worried that the beginning would become redundant later on; luckily it was basically just set up for the rest of the 2/3s of the book. I do therefore think the beginning could have been shorter, but…
…wow. The rest of the book: just, wow. I don’t want to give too much away but I bloody loved it. It was crimey and mysterious with a speckle of romance and some angst to pull on my heart strings. I thought the plot was paced and accelerated really well and the plot twists! Ah.
I really enjoyed the main character, Hester, and how spunky she was. She did sort of go-with-the-flow sometimes, but she knew who she was and what she wanted. Not only that, but she developed the whole way through. She was a little underhand at times, but that just made me love her more!
Overall, despite not being 5/5, this book is a new favourite of mine, and I definitely recommend it.
All the Bad Apples
Rating: 3/5
This is the third Moira Fowley-Doyle novel I’ve read, but I have to admit: it wasn’t my favourite so far. The premise here is that our main character’s sister is assumed dead by suicide, but the main character believes she’s still alive. Letters start turning up with addresses on and she and her friends go on a 36 hour hunt to try and reach the end of the chain.
Throughout the novel there were a couple of big plot twists that literally made my jaw drop. I thought the cast of characters was really interesting, and I loved that it was a story centered around women and women’s rights.
The reason my rating for this is so low is because, for me, the ending really let the entire book down. I thought the beginning and middle were really good, with just the right amount of magical realism and mystery Fowley-Doyle always presents, but in the last 20 or so pages, I was so confused. I kept batting back and forth, trying to catch up with who was where and speaking to whom, and then there was one whole chapter in which a character gave a speech that sounded incredibly well-rehearsed and not at all like natural speech. It really disappointed me, although I could feel the author’s well-placed anger coming through the text.