Posted on by Hermione · 10 Comments

The Midnight Library-A Book Review

Update: 10 September 2021-9.55 A.M (GMT+4)

I CANNOT BELEIVE IT! Lisa just released her solo! That was a little less than two hours ago…AND IT IS SO GOOD! The rap part! OMG…I am going to die. And it has got like 10.3 million views already!!!

For all those Blinks who have probably already listened to it, LISTEN TO IT AGAIN and by the way, here is the link to her M/V on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkkyBH2zEo

EEEEEEEEEE! Her rap parts are literally so perfect I can’t imagine…And the beat! Oh my goodness.

I am wondering myself why I even like BlackPink. It is definitely not even my type of music??? Why do I even like their music?🥴 I don’t know… Well, anyways, tell me what are your favourite BlackPink songs down below in the comments!

AND THAT SELF-CONFIDENCE! OH MY GOSH!

BTW, her rap at 1.20-1.40. OMFG!

2.27-2.53-That rap OHMYGAWD!

That badass queen…I TELL YOU! Because, for real, how much badass vibes does this song have to give? I’ll faint…

I swear that one day, she could hit 100 million views in a day.

Than me if anybody coming gunnin for my man

Gonna catch a case

Gun up in my hand

Bam bam bam

Hit after hit though

Rocks in my wrist so I call em the flintstones

Lalisa-by Lisa

That is my favourite part in the song😍.

  • Title: The Midnight Library
  • Author: Matt Haig
  • Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Contemporary, Magical Realism, Science Fiction
  • Category: YA (it says Adult on Goodreads but I think it will also be suitable for YA readers [anyone above 13 years] *looks at myself* depending how sensitive and mature you are about certain topics; suicide, depression, etc. They ARE NOT discussed lightly in this book and do check out trigger warnings before reading.)
  • Publishing Date/Publisher: September 29th 2020 by Viking (first published August 13th 2020)
52578297
Source: Goodreads

I really like this blue on the cover…I LOVE DARK BLUE!!!

Nora Seed is just a young woman who is having the worst day of her entire life. She is full of regrets; of what she had done, what she hadn’t done, the misunderstandings with her brother and people around her all mixed with the sadness of the sudden death of her cat, Voltaire.

At midnight, she makes a dreadful decision…she doesn’t want to live anymore. She is saturated with regrets and thoughts about how her life could have been different if she she had made other choices.

Instead of dying, she ends up in a place between life and death. A place where time has stopped…a place called the Midnight Library.

In the Midnight Library, the shelves go on forever and are filled with an infinite number of books, each giving a chance to Nora to experience a different life had she made a different choice in her existence. The library also has one book which is different from the others, The Book of Regrets.

As Nora enters and lives the different lives from the different books, will she ever be able to find a book worth to keep? Worth living?

About the Author:

Matt Haig

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield, England in1975. He writes books for both adults and children, often blending the worlds of domestic reality and outright fantasy, with a quirky twist. His bestselling novels are translated into 28 languages. The Guardian has described his writing as ‘delightfully weird’ and the New York Times has called him ‘a novelist of great talent’ whose writing is ‘funny, riveting and heartbreaking’.

His novels for adults are The Last Family in England, narrated by a labrador and optioned for film by Brad Pitt; The Dead Fathers Club (2006), an update of Hamlet featuring an 11-year-old boy; The Possession of Mr Cave (2008), about a man obsessed with his daughter’s safety, and The Radleys (2010) which won Channel 4’s TV Book Club public vote and was shortlisted for a Galaxy National Book Award (UK). The film rights to all his adult novels have been sold. His next adult novel is The Humans (2013).

His multi-award winning popular first novel for children, Shadow Forest, was published in 2007 and its sequel, The Runaway Troll, in 2009. His most recent children’s novel is To Be A Cat (2012).

[Picture and text taken directly from Goodreads]

My Ratings: 4/5

Rating: 4 out of 5.

My Thoughts:

WAIT…Mr. Haig has a DOG! His dog looks almost EXACTLY like our neighbour’s dog! The only difference is that the neighbour’s dog is named Princess and her nose is pink😂.

Well, that is supposed to be my thoughts about the BOOK so instead of blabbering about the way dogs look so much like dogs (…what…) we should better proceed.

I will list my thoughts in bullet points because I am feeling bullet-pointy today (pretty sure this word doesn’t exist).

What I liked:

  • The Midnight Library (the LIBRARY not the title🤦‍♀️) Even though I have read a book about a world between life and death, I have never read a book about a library between life and death. The way it was described made the library alive, magical and surreal. (Who wouldn’t like a place with infinite shelves and books that are only made up of the different variations, tints and shades of green? I LOVE GREEN). In my brain, it was like this library which had no ceiling and whenever you looked up, it was foggy. All around, it was foggy, you could only see the books if you went to them. You could never see all of the library at once, I was mysterious and magical plants, vines and old wood lurked around never in view. (that last sentence in bold is just my imagination😂)
  • The morals of the book. The book had just so many meanings and morals behind everything; Nora’s actions, choices and there were so many quotes in the book that were just so deep. For example, through this book, I realized that it isn’t only the choices we make that affect us but people’s choices as well. That in some way or another, billions of choices and decisions all balance out each person in the world and how one choice can change everything.
  • How Nora’s frequent trips to the Midnight Library weren’t repetitive and monotonous and didn’t feel boring.

What I didn’t like:

  • Most of the characters fell a little vague. Not the main characters but the others who weren’t present a lot. I think the author should have included them more into the book because many of the ‘side’ characters were a little flat. I think the more the characters were present in the book, the more they felt like people but those who were only present in meagre parts were like paper.
  • There were so many quotes about philosophy and other things the book could have substituted as a very useful self-help book. It isn’t that I had a problem with the quotes in itself but it was just a little too much for a teenager to take in (hemhem, I am not yet a teenager but…). I didn’t mind them but there was just way too much of them. For me to take in and right now, I don’t remember any of them.

Well, I think that is all. Otherwise, Lisa’s solo is just-

OMG. THIS IS SUPOSED TO BE A BOOK REVIEW WHAT AM I EVEN DOING??

Overall, I really liked the book and it is one that I really recommend. It isn’t an intense book but not a light read either. It shifts from light to intense at points. Just please go check trigger warnings before reading this and keep in mind, it isn’t an adult book but a young adult one and is suitable for teenagers depending on your level of maturity because suicide and depression is discussed a lot in that book.

Well, we are finally done with the review!

I’d run off for now!

See you with another book!

-H

Posted on by Hermione · 2 Comments

House of Hollow-A Book Review

Hey all people!

I hope none of you are getting stuck in other worlds or worlds of the dead or worlds between the lands of the living and of the dead or anything of this sort because I tell you…I have read enough about these to know that when you get stuck in some other world, it is very difficult to come back. So don’t go opening mysterious doors…

Well, the review shall not be forgotten haha.

  • Title: House of Hollow
  • Author: Krystal Sutherland
  • Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Magical Realism
  • Category: YA
  • Publisher/Publishing Date: April 6th 2021 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
House of Hollow
Source: Goodreads

Can somebody tell me? How many beautiful covers exist in this world? My god!! Just look at the ants, beetles and flowery pattern on this face! I mean, how can people draw so beautifully?

WOW.WOW.WOW.

And tell me? How can any author be THAT lucky to have a cover that beautiful in a book????

Iris Hollow and her two sisters are the human definition of ‘strange’. Strange in a way that all three possess a half-moon scar at the base of their throat and a mysterious connection that binds all three to each other…almost magically. Iris doesn’t remember how she ended up with a scar but something happened to her during her childhood that she can’t recall, not even put a finger on.

Iris has always wanted to be a normal person but fitting in is not what the Hollow sisters do best. When Grey Hollow, Iris’s eldest sister suddenly goes missing, Iris and her other sister, Vivi will do anything to find her. Life cannot get any weirder than that can it? Even for the weirdest people?

Following mysterious trails and unraveling secrets along her way, Iris and Vivi’s mission won’t be easy. Horned men start following the two sisters, and the corpse of a man is discovered in one of Grey’s apartment. It isn’t the end either. Memories unfurl…memories of the sisters’ childhood that Iris starts to remember in fragmented pieces…all Iris and Vivi can hope is that things don’t become more complicated, impossible to solve and most of all, that their sister isn’t dead…but probably, she is. Already.

About the Author:

Krystal Sutherland

Krystal Sutherland is an internationally published author. Her latest novel for young adults, House of Hollow, was released by Penguin in April 2021. Sutherland’s first novel, Chemical Hearts, was published in over 20 countries and was named by the American Booksellers Association as one of the best debuts of 2016.

[Picture and text taken directly from Goodreads]

My Ratings: 4.5/5

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

My Thoughts:

Okay, if there is one thing I like, it is mystery thrillers with magical realism and in this book, the author blends those two EXTREMELY well. It was dark, mysterious and had the concept of ‘otherworlds’ (if any of you were wondering why I started this post with a very *hemhem* weird introduction). It wasn’t the sort of ‘otherworld’ that is about parallel universes and lands of the dead but rather the part between the land of the living and the land of the dead. And this place is mentioned under the name of the ‘Halfway‘ in the book. Unique I tell you.

Iris is the definition of weird, mysterious, dark, way-too-beautiful-but-doesn’t-know-how-to-take-advantage-of-it. The story is told in her point of view of course since she is our main character. She is a sort of person who wants to be NORMAL. Like lead a normal life where people don’t point at her wondering if she remembers anything about her childhood or thinking about whether she is a witch and if she is too dangerous. Haha, considering the fact that her and Vivi’s life fall upside down when Grey isn’t here. Like they are Grey’s fiercely loyal soldiers and Grey is the main commander and without her…well…upside down life it is.

This is why Iris and Vivi go nuts when their sister isn’t here. They have such a strong sister bond which I admire (considering the fact that me and my sister are constantly bickering and always have one major fight ever day)…

Vivi, is this person who almost HATES her beauty and even shaved her head for this. She has loads of tattoos and is the human definition of rock-n’-roll. She is that sort of person who wears crop tops, jeans, mini-skirts. And she ruins her health…okay…cannot live without smoking or drugs for a day and every day without is a day ruined for her😂. She is fierce, caring, a little clumsy when it comes to manners and loves her sisters very much.

Grey…the most enigmatic of all…she is a supermodel and owner of her own designer brand called House of Hollow where she designs clothes and being a very weird person, inserts secret runes or pieces of paper into the hems and all. She, unlike Iris, knows her worth very well and embraces her uniqueness. She uses her beauty as an advantage and is fiercely protective of her two smaller sisters (includes death threats to her own parents…and we see more things in the book.)

Other than that, the plot was unique and unlike any I have read before. Magical realism makes the book so out of the ordinary and you know what I explained above about the concept of the ‘otherworld’ which was definitely a different one. I have never read a book about an otherworld between life and death so that was an aspect that really liked.

There is just a way in which everything is explained in the book and nothing is left out. Like the childhood mystery wasn’t left unsolved. Like everything was part of of the main goal in the book.

Since I guess I have definitely talked enough, I should probably end this post and draft my August Wrap-Up since I haven’t yet done it and I cringe every time I think of it…😭

Well, I think that is all for today otherwise this post will become a very-long-post so bye for now!!!

Love, hermione!

P.S. Next post will be my August wrap up or a review of Tweet Cute by Emma Lord so be sure to stick around for more!!