The first book I read I had started in September and finished in October, it took me a bit because it was a little hard to get into and that book was:
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
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| Published September 2016, By Little, Brown and Company |
This book follows Lib, a nurse who has been hired to observe a proclaimed "wonder" of God. Tourists flock to Ireland to see the eleven year old girl who can live off manna from heaven, Anna O'Donnell. To assure she is indeed a "wonder" and out of concern for her health, Lib Wright is hired to observe the girl, a veteran of the Florence Nightingale's Crimean Campaign, she's skeptical and thinks this job will be over quickly.
So I got this as an extra in my October BOTM, that's one thing I love about them, this book was actually an option in October of 2016, but books of the past are readily available as an extra purchase (assuming it's not sold out) for only $9.99. Other book subscriptions do have past boxes available occasionally but I found it's usually a special sale for a holiday.
Anyway...At the time it came out this book intrigued me but I was still cautious with this whole book subscription dealio and was still having issues trying to pick a "good" book for me to choose when it came to Book of the Month. But ever since then, I've been seeing it, and ultimately the cover was what kept drawing me in. And every time I picked it up I would grow curiouser and curiouser about the story. Finally I caved and purchased it. As I said before it took me a little bit to get into, it's a little slow paced. The setting is in Ireland shortly after the potato famine. But when I did start getting into it, I didn't want to put it down. Lib had so much growth in the book, and her past gets revealed little by little, as does Anna O'Donnell's. This book has an interesting angle on pitting faith and moral sensibility against each other, and every step of the way I was questioning everyone's involvement.
Think I gave this 3.75 out of 5 stars.
The Next book I read I actually forgot to mention in my October Haul and that was:
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
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| Published September 2017, by Harperteen |
This book follows Mateo and Ruffus in a future not so different from ours, the only thing is Death Cast, an agency that can predict when you are going to die, but not how and not the specific time. Death Cast calls it's victims? clients? Between 12 am - 3 am to let them know that with in the next 24 hours, they will die. Death Cast then helps you organize burial or cremation plans. This book is the 24 hour perspectives of Mateo and Ruffus and how their 24 hours goes for each of them, as well as a couple other side characters.
I don't think I did justice to the synopsis. I listened to this on Audible, which is why I think I didn't add it into my October Haul as I often go off my physical book pile.
I didn't plan to read this originally, but after sampling it on audible, the guy who voiced Mateo stuck with me. The voice actors themselves were relatively great, the only thing I had issues with was due to the switching of perspective between Mateo and Ruffus and the voice actors trying to talk like the other in perspective switch as well as the narration not always saying who said what, it was hard to tell who was who at times. If that makes any sense at all. At times it would be Mateo's chapter and when Ruffus would talk the voice actor would try to sound like Ruffus but it wouldn't always work, and with dialogue it just became hard to distinguish between the two.
The story itself was interesting. Though I do wish it went a little further into Death Cast, and how they were able to know when people died. My other issue was if they altered people's death by telling them. So by telling them they were going to die that day, did they have an effect on people's deaths or was it bound to happen anyway? This will be a debatable question. But in my opinion yes, I feel like Death Cast may have influenced someone's death by revealing they were going to die.
Mateo I felt was a little too paranoid, and Ruffus's lingo bugged me. How "like" is a filler word for us was the same for "mad" with Ruffus, it was used for everything. Otherwise the voice actors who played them, I felt played them well. Mateo was the introverted gamer who just wanted to be able to live a life other's could see as worth living but was too afraid to do so, and all I wanted to do was protect him. While Ruffus was outgoing "thug" type who felt he was welcoming death due to his troubled past, who was also insightful and had a passion for photography that made me melt. They both had a "you could die at any moment" mentality that couldn't be more different than each other but their relationship blossomed in away that didn't feel like it was rushed despite being in 24 hours. I didn't want the title of the book to be true, but I didn't want it to mislead me either.
One thing I do have to say was that the ending fell a little flat. Yes it made me cry at various points, and I still gave it four out of five stars, but I was expecting to throw the book and sob, cursing Silvera for making me feel for characters and then ripping them away from me in a dramatic ending. And that just didn't happen. At the end I was left with a kind of "well fuck" feeling. Yeah it was still sad, but it was still kind of disappointing.
So that was it for my October Review, let me know if you've read either of these books, and what your thoughts were on them. If you want to discuss further feel free, I'm happy to do so. Some prompts for that can be: Would you want to know you were going to die with in 24 hours? What would you do?
Until next time!
Litta
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