The Arctic Incident & The Eternity Code Graphic Novels by Eoin Colfer
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Fantasy, middle-grade
Author: Eoin Colfer
I have said many times before that this series is severely underrated and is in fact one of my favourite middle-grade series. So when I found out there were graphic novels, I had to revisit them in this format. And for the most part, I have been loving them. They bring beloved characters to life in a new way and they’re just a delight to go through. I do obviously recommend reading the novels themselves if you’ve not read the series before. They are better and offer more, especially The Arctic Incident. However, I think as a means of revisiting the story, the graphic novels re absolutely fantastic and I’m sad only the first 4 books are out in this format.
The Body Reader by Anne Frasier
Rating: 2.5/5
First published: 2016
Genre: Thriller, crime
Author: Anne Frasier
Synopsis: For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive.
After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice—and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues’ doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn’t trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he’d rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.
This was one of those books that wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. It was just sort of… meh. Like, it was entertaining, I enjoyed it. I listened to it on audio, and I had a good time listening to it. However, it wasn’t memorable. Especially for a thriller. It had pretty much all of the tropes these types of books have: the gifted detective that has Sherlock Holmes-esque skills, the dark mysterious partner with a past he’d rather keep hidden.
I neither liked nor disliked the characters. I thought they were fairly bland, less in the sense that they were written so poorly that they didn’t seem like people and more in the sense that they were pretty much exactly a trope. The story itself was interesting enough not to be boring, however it was fairly predictable. All in all, not a very memorable book.
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
Rating: 5/5 stars
Genre: Poetry
First published: 2014
Author: Rupi Kaur
Poetry is pretty much hit or miss for me. I either really enjoy it, or really don’t. This book was one of those that I absolutely loved. It was beautiful and relatable and it made me cry more than once. I don’t really know how to review a poetry book. What do you talk about? Besides whether or not you enjoyed it? All I can say is that I absolutely recommend this to anyone.
Invitation to Poetry by Mihai Brinas
Rating: 1.5/5 stars
Genre: Poetry
First published: 2017
Author: Mihai Brinas
***I was offered an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
To highlight what I was saying about poetry being very hit or miss for me, I did not like this book at all. Part of it may be because English is not the author’s first language, as I understand it, and the writing just feels awkward and forced. But mostly, it’s because I got nothing from these poems. I couldn’t relate to them, I didn’t understand what was being conveyed. In fact, with a lot of the poems, I got the impression they weren’t trying to say anything beyond… words. If you know what I mean.
A Book Nerd 