Celebrate the love for books
Wow. That was something. Besides the Queen’s funeral last year, I’ve largely ignored any news surrounding the monarchy. And so, Spare by Prince Harry wasn’t exactly on my radar. That is, until I saw the audiobook pop up on Libby and noticed that Prince Harry himself was the narrator. Quick glance at the holds queue told me I would be third. Alright, I figured, might as well find out what all the controversy is about.
When I first started out reading Burn, I was intrigued. Historical fiction isn’t all too common in young adult publishing compared to contemporary fiction, fantasy and science fiction. History and fantasy crossing paths? Even less so. But Patrick Ness has an excellent track record of meshing various genres and even defying them, so I expected this one to be a hit as well. It wasn’t but I was still glad that he brought his signature postmodern outlook with a touch of whimsy.
For some reason, I’ve had a significant slow down with YA novels this year. I’ve just not been able to settle down and focus on reading, no matter how intriguing various books sound. Most of the time I’ve resorted to audiobooks for which I tend to pick non-fiction books. Thanks to a long haul flight though, I had no distractions to keep me from Mirage. I was happily entertained.
Izzy was such a refreshing and hilarious character. Her personality shone through the blog posts and her annotations on hindsight. Once in a while, the details she shared bordered on TMI (too much information) but in a diary sort of blog that’s not exactly unusual. If you like no holds barred narrations that flow with stream of consciousness, you’ll be in stitches laughing over The Exact Opposite of Okay.
Where do I begin with Love, Hate & Other Filters? Even though it has less than 300 pages, there is so much to unpack! It touches on themes of cultural and religious diversity, to romance, to extremism and terrorism. That might seem like quite a lot but I think they’re dealt with pretty well.
