1/15/2016

Books in Review x Oh Flower Child



Happy Friday, TGIF and vice versa. It's been one of those weeks that's just dragged on a little bit. Although Monday was awesome, especially going to watch Sisters and having time with kittens, friends and makeup. Anyway, today we have some reviews for y'all from Emma. I'll let Emma introduce herself now and you can get acquainted with her reviews. Enjoy!

I'm Emma, a 19 year old student from New Zealand. I'm a book worm, a lover of thrift shopping and a complete Richard Ayoade fangirl. I run the blog Oh Flower Child and write mostly about beauty, books, and fashion, with some lifestyle posts thrown into the mix.

Now on with the reviews..

The Invasion of the Tearling* by Erika Johansen: The Invasion of the Tearling is the second book of the Tearling series - the previous one being The Queen of the Tearling. This primarily starts off as a fantasy series, but The Invasion of the Tearling brings in science dystopian elements. Kelsea is challenged to face The Red Queen and defeat The Mort Army, while trying to figure out what has happened in the past with the Royal family, and equipping herself to deal with strong magic from a necklace around her neck.

I found this book to be much more gripping than the first. The first book was setting up everything, whereas much more happened in the second, and everything you wanted answered from the first, was. By the start of the second book, my head was wrapped around the world and the characters, and in turn this book was much more enjoyable. The protagonist, Kelsea, has changed quite dramatically from the first book, and I saw lots of character development. I felt that Kelsea is starting to see who she really is and who she should be deep down, for her kingdom. The dystopian elements mixed with the medieval fantasy world is really unique - I just felt myself really enjoying finding out what would happen and how those two worlds could somehow be connected. On a side note the first book is being turned into a movie staring a very famous actress - I feel like this is definitely a series to start reading now.

The Bone Season* by Samantha Shannon: The Bone Season is book number one of a fantasy series based around the idea of certain citizens in society being 'unnatural', or what they call 'clairvoyance' - rejected by the Scion London officials and therefore by every 'natural' citizen. Paige Mahoney is a dreamwalker - one of many clairvoyance powers that an unnatural can have. She essentially breaks into people's minds and with her ability, works alongside others for a man named Jaxon Hall at the Seven Dials in London. But outside of the controlled world of Scion, another powerful society awaits, of which entails something called 'The Bone Season'.

When I first began reading, there was definitely information overload. It was hard to keep up with all of the names and the terms for everything in the world. I have to say, it starts off slow. It gets better gradually, but it does take time to wrap your head around everything. The second half of the book is much better in my opinion, and I could not stop reading. There was lots of action-packed moments near the end of the book, where as the first half was quite mediocre. The start was slightly hard to get into, but things got very intense soon enough. I think this was an innovative world - very imaginative and detailed. If you like fantasy, I'd say definitely keep this one on your radar.

-Have you read either of these books? What did you think of them?

*Review copy


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