In February I also started reading 'Cross Stitch'- the first book in the 'Outlander' series- by Diana Gabaldon. I am currently just over 600 pages through this 864 page book.
February was the short month of long books. I read both 'Love, Rosie' and 'Brazen' with around 550 pages each, and I also read a fair bit of the mamoth 'Cross Stitch'. On top of that, I touched the surface of the beast that is 'Wolf Hall', reading 65 pages of 653.
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Books Read in February:
1. 'Love, Rosie' -Cecelia Ahern
I loved this book, I actually updated my rating of it on Goodreads from three stars to four stars. I really loved the way this book was written- it's in the form of letters, emails and instant messaging, I've never read anything written in that way before. It's a lot longer than I though it would be (over 500 pages to be precise) and everything that seemed major to the plot happened within the first 200-300 pages of the story so I had no idea what was going to happen later on- which is a good thing. The story spans over about 45 years, the story did slow down a lot towards the end and the amount of time that had passed between individual emails became more vague, but that didn't even matter. It was so good. I cried a lot at the ending. Love it.
2. 'The Kill Order'- James Dashner
This is the prequel to the Maze Runner books, which are possibly my favourite book series of all-time. I wasn't so sure about this one as it doesn't have the characters from the rest of the series in it, and I really do love them with all my heart. I so desperately wanted to like this book, and it was really good, but it took me such a long time to actually engage with the characters and their story. I did, however, start to really enjoy it without realising, and a lot of it was very intense. There's a lot of action and the ending is sad, sad, sad. The prologue chapter of this book was absolutely incredible. I really love Dashner's stlye of writing in very short chapters.
3. 'Maus (Volume One)'- Art Spiegelman
This is the first volume of the two graphic novels of this story, and the first graphic novel I have read in over three years. 'Maus' is the true story of the author's father's time in Nazi Poland during World War Two- the first volume starting in the mid 1930's and ending in winter 1944, just before the author's father went to Auschwitz. It's not a happy story. The concept of this story is fascinating- all the Jews are drawn as mice, and all the Nazis are drawn as cats. The novel also tells the story of the author's difficult relationship with his father, and I like how brutally honest he is about it. It's not my favourite thing I've read, but I did enjoy it, and I will read the second volume. I think it's an important story and it needs to be recognised and spoken about more.
4. 'Brazen'- Katherine Longshore
Historical fiction can be iffy. If it's historically accurate as well as well written, you're good to go, but there is also a lot of historical fiction that is too awful and inaccurate to read. 'Brazen' falls under the former category, you can tell that the author did her research and it's a fantastic read. I loved this book, it's one of the very few books that I have made a conscious effort to mark quotes that I loved in. The first sentence is amazing. 'Brazen' is set in Tudor times, my favourite part of history, and I just love the descriptions of being at court; everything is very believable. I loved this book and I would highly recommend it.
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