Cova Reviews | Ronit & Jamil, by Pamela L. Laskin | 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge

Hello, everyone! And welcome to this review of lyrical narration Ronit and Jamil, by Pamela L. Laskin. I picked up this book for 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge for the month of May (it's July, I know - but I only managed to read it this month!). The topic for the month of May was:

Religious Diversity

and this book fits perfectly as it is a retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in a Palestinian-Israeli setting. 

"Ronit, an Israeli girl, lives on one side of the barrier fence. Jamil, a Palestinian boy, lives on the other side. Only miles apart but separated by generations of conflict—much more than just the concrete blockade between them. Their fathers, however, work in a distrusting but mutually beneficial business arrangement, a relationship that brings Ronit and Jamil together. And lightning strikes. The kind of lightning that transcends barrier fences, war, and hatred. Ronit and Jamil fall desperately into the throes of forbidden love, one that would create an irreparable rift between their families if it were discovered. But a love this big can be kept secret for only so long. Soon, the teenage lovers must face the fateful choice to save their lives or their loves, as it may not be possible to save both." (Goodreads)

Cova Reviews | To All The Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Hann

Hey, guys! First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I have been away for some time due to my finals, but I am back to say goodbye to 2016 :D Today I bring to you a YA, contemporary novel by Jenny Han - To All The Boys I've Loved Before (the first of the to-be trilogy To All the Boys I've Loved Before). I hadn't heard a lot about this novel, but what I'd  heard was great, so I (wrongly) decided to pick it up just before my exams period. I started listening to the audiobook, but then I just really wanted to know what was going to happen next quicker than the audiobook would let me and I picked up the e-book. I absolutely loved this novel! But let's just get right into the details :) 

To All the Boys I've Loved Before is about a girl named Lara Jean who has the habit of writing a love letter to every boy she likes when she stops liking them. She keeps them in a box, and never sends them -it's just so she can move on, like a good-bye letter. The thing is that one day, the letters are somehow sent to the boys, and her secrets exposed.

Book Series Review: The Mortal Instruments (Cassandra Clare)

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to be talking about and reviewing book series by Cassandra Clare - The Mortal Instruments (yes, I know the picture I posted right above these lines is from City of Bones - the movie, but it's so beautiful!).

Cova Reviews | Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes

Hello there! Today's post will be a review of the super famous novel Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes. It is a contemporary romance about family, love and overcoming hard situations. 

"Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time." (Goodreads)

Forbidden - Tabitha Suzuma

Forbidden by British author Tabitha Suzuma is a young adult, contemporary novel  about two siblings who fall in love. I directly tell you it is an outstanding read.

"She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister." (modified from Goodreads)

Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) by Victoria Aveyard

Hello everyone! This week's post will be about Glass Sword -the second book to the Red Queen series, by Victoria Aveyard - her young adult, dystopian, fantasy series. As a note, I will tell you that the author has recently announced her plan to add a fourth book to what originally was going to be her first trilogy. The title and release dates of both the third and fourth novels has not been set yet (I don't think even the 3rd one is fully finished, so... :P). What I know is that the third novel will be out in 2017, and I can guess it will be around February - just as the previous two were. Let's hope it's not later than that!

I would advise you to only read the following plot summary if you've already read Red Queen (I won't write any spoilers, but I wouldn't read about a second book if I haven't read the first one). Otherwise, you can read what the first book (Red Queen) is about here. 

"If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control. 

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. 

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat. 

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul. " (Goodreads)

A Thousand Pieces of You - Claudia Gray

Hello everybody! I know it's been quite a long time since I last posted anything. Being a college student is hard! As you may know if you follow me on Twitter, I have a few reviews to write, so I'll start posting them whenever I get the chance.  

As for this one, it is about A Thousand Pieces of You, by Claudia Gray. It is a young adult, science-fiction (some even say fantasy, though I wouldn't quite agree) novel - the first part of the Firebird Series.

"Cloud Atlas meets Orphan Black in this epic dimension-bending trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray about a girl who must chase her father's killer through multiple dimensions.
Marguerite Caine's physicist parents are known for their groundbreaking achievements. Their most astonishing invention, called the Firebird, allows users to jump into multiple universes—and promises to revolutionize science forever. But then Marguerite's father is murdered, and the killer—her parent's handsome, enigmatic assistant Paul— escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.
Marguerite refuses to let the man who destroyed her family go free. So she races after Paul through different universes, always leaping into another version of herself. But she also meets alternate versions of the people she knows—including Paul, whose life entangles with hers in increasingly familiar ways. Before long she begins to question Paul's guilt—as well as her own heart. And soon she discovers the truth behind her father's death is far more sinister than she expected.
A Thousand Pieces of You explores an amazingly intricate multi-universe where fate is unavoidable, the truth elusive, and love the greatest mystery of all." (Goodreads)

Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard is the first book of a young adult, fantasy series with the same name about a world in which there are two kinds of people - those whose blood has a red colour and those whose blood has a silver colour. The Silvers have special abilities which enables them overpower the Reds, who live in very bad conditions and tend to hate the Silvers. Our main character, Mare, is a Red, destined to serve the military in her next birthday, but her story is much more complicated than that...

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz

When I first heard of this book, I was a bit cautious with it because I thought the title implied it being a middle-school read which I wouldn't enjoy as much. However, I heard and read so many good reviews on it that I changed my mind about it, and decided to buy it. Here's what I thought about it.

First of all, let me please tell you that if you are thinking that maybe you'd like to read it, don't rely on the back-cover insight to the story. It's pretty poor, and it will make you think of it as a boring on, which is not.

It is about two 15-year-old boys, Ari and Dante, who don't really have many friends, and find each other at the town's swimming pool. From that moment on, they become really good friends, and you'll start knowing more about the two of them as the story goes on - as will them, really.

100 followers on Twitter & Thoughts on the Fifty Shades Trilogy - E.L. James

WE'VE REACHED 100 FOLLOWERS ON TWITTER!!

I just checked the page's Twitter account and discovered that there is already 100 of you following @W_Literature!! I am so grateful to you all, and to celebrate this fantastic achievement, I've decided to do a post of some very famous pieces of literature. 

Here's to reading!

So I read this ultimately famous erotic series at the very start of the summer, and as I recently saw someone's review of the books, I figured I would do the same, just to let you know what my thoughts were. It is a very polemic series, and without further ado, let's get started!

First of all, I will admit that I had no idea what the books were about before I started reading the first one, Fifty Shades of Grey. I just wanted to know what was it that attracted millions and millions of readers, and if the books were actually any good. So let me start by explaining a bit what the story behind the whole erotic thing is about. 

Senior college student Anastasia Steele steps in for her sick roommate to interview the owner of one of the most successful companies in the world, Christian Grey, for an article for the college newspaper. She is clumsy and shy, and hardly had any relationships in her whole life, but still something makes the billionaire feel surprisingly attracted to her, and soon she sees him everywhere. What she doesn't know is that the mysterious, utterly handsome businessman has some quite difficult and unusual habits with the girls he meets. 

Cova Reviews | Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan

Will Grayson, Will Grayson tells the story of two guys who have the same name - there are two guys called Will Grayson living nearby. They do not know each other, and their lives are pretty different: one of them has a stable family, with two surgeon parents and a gay best friend; the other Will Grayson lives with his mum, needs pills for his mental health issues, does not want any friends and has a big secret. Eventually their lives intertwine in the most unexpected circumstances. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a book about love, friendship and finding one's sexuality.

As you have probably already noticed, it is written by two different authors, who have tremendously different writing styles. They write alternate chapters, each of which is about a different Will Grayson. This means that each author writes only about one of the Graysons, following the order Green, Levithan, Green, Levithan... This makes the book and the characters so much richer, because the writing of the authors is as different as the two main characters, shown through the 1st person narration. 

Sway, by Kat Spears

"Boy meets girl. 

Boy charms girl...

For someone else."

Sway is a young adult novel about a guy, Jesse Alderman, who makes a living at school out of arranging stuff for people. Whatever you want, he can get for you. He has everything under control, but one day he is asked by the captain of the football team at school to get him the most beautiful girl in the school, Bridget Smalley, whom he's asked out before, with no good result. However, everything is turned up-side down when Jesse starts to have feelings for this girl, who is not only pretty, but also the most attentive, intelligent, and good person.

I personally really enjoyed this book, mainly because the story is original and refreshing. 

The writing is good, though nothing spectacular. Spears uses different types of language depending on the situation the main character is in, which also helps the reader learn things about Jesse's personality, and the style changes quite a lot when the narrator (Jesse) talks about Bridget.

The characters in general are well developed, and I think the author did something quite impressive and original with the main character: the reader learns more things about him, his past and what he does the more he realises that he likes the girl. As it is written in first person, it feels as if he started giving secrets away to the reader the more he opened his heart to himself.

Something else that really caught my attention is that the chapters are very much differentiated one from another, which I am still not sure how I feel about as, even though it is another thing that makes the book original, also causes for a certain discontinuity in the plot.

What really got to me was the story per se, and the development of the main character throughout the book. He makes decisions that, even thought are not the ones I would have made, are justified through his beliefs and the consequences that different ones would have brought. As you read further, you learn enough about him as to guess the lies he tells other characters and himself, which is somewhat rewarding.

I really liked this book as a whole, and I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars (3 stars on Goodreads).

Let me know what you thought about it or the feelings you got from the review!

wonderful literature.

The Ruining - Anna Collomore

I will start this review by stating that I find psychological thrillers quite very interesting. I think that novels that take into account the complexity of the human mind and all the problems that this carries along can either be fantastic and blow your mind, or simply just not quite get to you.

The Ruining is about a young girl, Annie Phillips, who moves from Detroit to San Francisco on her first year of university. She has a difficult relationship with her family, so she sort of runs away to the house that will be her home for the rest of the school year - the Cohen family, for whom she will work as a babysitter in order to earn money to pay for her university fees. She is very excited to start over. However, what seems like a dream will not look like so for too long, and everything will turn upside down, and eventually Annie will start wondering whether she's becoming crazy.

In my opinion, The Ruining, by Anna Collomore had all the chances to be a fantastic novel: the plot was interesting, and the way the author treated the psychological part of it was actually pretty decent. However, what made me quite dislike this novel is the writing of the author.  If the writing had been right, she could have written such an amazing novel... 

Let me explain myself. First of all, the length of the book is roughly 300 pages, which is not long enough to develop the plot that the author presents. This causes for the story to go too fast at times and for parts of the book to be unclear, which confuses the reader. Quite a few times I got the feeling that I had skipped parts of the book and found myself going back a few pages, unsuccessfully trying to find answers. Also, I think the way the main character reacts to situations is not believable sometimes. These two points made me consider a couple of times stop reading the book and just forget about it.