On the Pressure to Buy Books

Today, I want to talk about something that has been bothering me for a while - the pressure within the YA community to buy books. As a member of the YA community, I've seen a number of things over the past few months with regards to YA readers buying books that have slowly been building up and building up, and I just feel it needs to be addressed.

The majority of books are expensive, there's no way of getting round that. It's fact. It's something I've discussed before. And while people of all ages can and do read YA, the target audience are teenagers, who don't have disposable income (see Vicky of Vicky Who Read's post The Many Ways YA Books & The Community Isolates Teens for more discourse on how those who buy YA have an affect on what gets published). And what I've been seeing is the pressure members of the YA community are under when it comes to buying books, based on a number of issues.

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The 20 Questions Book Tag

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Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I do love a book tag! They're so good when you're having a day where you can't think of blog content. Today, I'm going to be taking part in the 20 Questions Book Tag which I stole from Paper Fury, and this one in particular is really fun! So many interesting questions! So let's get to it!

1. How many books are too many for a series?
See, this is a funny one, because my answer absolutely depends on who the author is, and how many books in/behind I am.

If it's Cassandra Clare and all the Shadow Hunters books - well, I've only read the first two in the Mortal Instruments series, but then she kept coming out with another series, and another, then another. And while I enjoyed the two books I read, I just decided, "Nope." I was too far behind and didn't want to invest any more time on these books when it would take me so long to catch up.

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Review: This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik (#Ad)

I received this eProof for free from Bonnier Zaffre via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik

Published: 13th June 2019 | Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre | Cover Designer: Nick Stearn | Source: Publisher
Ayisha Malik's Website

Accountant Bilal Hasham and his journalist wife, Mariam, plod along contentedly in the sleepy, chocolate box village they've lived in for eight years.

Then Bilal is summoned to his dying mother's bedside in Birmingham. Sakeena Hasham is not long for this world but refuses to leave it until she ensures that her son remembers who he is: a Muslim, however much he tries to ignore it. She has a final request. Instead of whispering her prayers in her dying moments, she instructs Bilal to go home to his village, Babbel's End, and build a mosque.

Mariam is horrified. The villagers are outraged. How can a grieving Bilal choose between honouring his beloved mum's last wish and preserving everything held dear in the village he calls home?

But it turns out home means different things to different people.

Battle lines are drawn and this traditional little community becomes the colourful canvas on which the most current and fundamental questions of identity, friendship, family and togetherness are played out.

What makes us who we are, who do we want to be, and how far would we go to fight for it? From Goodreads.

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features death, grief, discussion of drug use, racism and Islamophobia.

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What Do We Want From Reviews?

Recently, I have been reading reviews - on blogs, on Goodreads, on Amazon - for specific books and becoming quite frustrated. Which led me to ask on Twitter, "Does no-one else read reviews to find out more about a story?", to which I got more responses than I expected, and I realised that a lot of us actually want very different things from reviews.

A good number of years back, I discovered three Aussie blogs that I absolutely adored; Eleusinian Mysteries, Saz101, and Read Me Bookmark Me Love Me, all of which are sadly no longer running. Run by Brodie, Sarah, and Lisa, these blogs were everything. They're reviews were fun and full of passion, but they also wrote long, detailed reviews that answered every question I could ask. Loving their reviews, my review style changed. I didn't copy their review style, my reviews are very much me, but my reviews got longer, more detailed. The reviews I have from before discovering these blogs are pretty crap, but they're still here, if you wanted to look back far enough.

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How I Approach Blogging to Reduce Stress and Pressure

Inspired by Cerys at Browsing For Books' post Feeling Pressured to Read - Why the YA Community Can Be Toxic and Isla of Whisper of Ink's Do You Genuinely Love the Content You're Creating and Consuming?, today I want to talk about how I approach book blogging. I've had this conversation before on Twitter and in the comments of other people's blogs, but I've never written about it here. I've been book blogging for ten years now, and the main reason I'm still here is because I've found a way of blogging that works for me.

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Review: A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Published: 12th July 2018 | Publisher: HarperVoyager | Source: Bought
Sabaa Tahir's Website

After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt Elias and Laia as they flee the city of Serra.

Laia and Elias are determined to break into the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison to save Laia’s brother, even if for Elias it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

They will have to fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene, Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own, one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape . . . and kill them both. From Goodreads.

My other reviews of the An Ember in the Ashes Quartet:
An Ember in the Ashes (Book 1) (#Ad)

WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Content/Trigger Warnings: This book features a fade-to-black sex scene, a panic attack, ghosts/spirits, slavery, torture, death, and genocide.

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Sapphic Retellings

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Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I'm wanting to try and read more f/f novels this year, whether it's bi rep or lesbian rep. When I stumbled across Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson, and realised it was f/f, I decided I definitely wanted to read more sapphic retellings, so I put a call out on Twitter, and Twitter delivered! I ended up with so many recommendations, I thought I would share them with you guys. So this least features those I already knew about, and those that were recommended to me, with credit given. Some are traditionally published, some published by indies, and some self-published, and are either YA or adult. None are (or shouldn't be) erotica, as that's not what I'm personally interested in, but you can put your own call out on Twitter, and I'm sure people can give you all the recs!

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USYA vs UKYA Writing Styles

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All titles mentioned in this post were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Today I want to talk about USYA and UKYA, and their writing styles. I'm sure anyone who reads a lot of USYA and UKYA that the writing styles are very different. They're so distinctive, you could give me two books by a US author and a UK author, without telling me where the authors are from, and the majority of the time, I'd be able to tell you which is which.

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Review: The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty (#Ad)

I received this eProof for free from HarperVoyager via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty

Published: 21st February 2019 | Publisher: HarperVoyager | Source: Publisher
S. A. Chakraborty's Website

Return to Daevabad in the spellbinding sequel to THE CITY OF BRASS.

Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during one of her schemes. Whisked from her home in Cairo, she was thrust into the dazzling royal court of Daevabad and quickly discovered she would need all her grifter instincts to survive there.

Now, with Daevabad entrenched in the dark aftermath of the battle that saw Dara slain at Prince Ali’s hand, Nahri must forge a new path for herself, without the protection of the guardian who stole her heart or the counsel of the prince she considered a friend. But even as she embraces her heritage and the power it holds, she knows she’s been trapped in a gilded cage, watched by a king who rules from the throne that once belonged to her family and one misstep will doom her tribe.

Meanwhile, Ali has been exiled for daring to defy his father. Hunted by assassins, adrift on the unforgiving copper sands of his ancestral land, he is forced to rely on the frightening abilities the marid, the unpredictable water spirits, have gifted him. But in doing so, he threatens to unearth a terrible secret his family has long kept buried.

And as a new century approaches and the djinn gather within Daevabad's towering brass walls for celebrations, a threat brews unseen in the desolate north. It’s a force that would bring a storm of fire straight to the city’s gates . . . and one that seeks the aid of a warrior trapped between worlds, torn between a violent duty he can never escape and a peace he fears he will never deserve. From Goodreads

My other reviews of The Daevabad Trilogy:
The City of Brass

WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the first book in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Trigger Warnings: This book features prejudice and discrimination akin to racism, poisoning, discussion of self-harm, discussion of genocide, discussion of past wars, battles, and death.

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Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Kinds of Books I Won't Read

When it comes to what we read, we all have different tastes. Different genres we like, different writing styles, and so on. And because of those different tastes, there will be certain books we won't read just because they're not our bag, and that's fine. But that's not exactly what I want to talk about today. It's less books I don't fancy, and more books I refuse to read, period. Sometimes the things I have issues with are made clear from the blurb, sometimes I only discover the books feature things I do not want to read by actually starting to read them, so I end up DNF-ing them. Here are some of the things that will stop me from reading a book.

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The Price of Hardbacks

This post contains affiliate links.

Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

There's something I wish to discuss today about hardbacks. The price. I have previously mentioned my issue with the price of hardbacks, but I want to dig a little deeper. I have various issues with hardbacks, which are mentioned in the post linked, but a lot of the time, when books are published in hardback first, you have to choose whether you want to wait for paperback or whether you want to buy it now.

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Review: Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Published: 10th October 2017 | Publisher: Philomel Books | Source: Bought
Julie C. Dao's Website

An East Asian fantasy reimagining of The Evil Queen legend about one peasant girl's quest to become Empress--and the darkness she must unleash to achieve her destiny.

Eighteen-year-old Xifeng is beautiful. The stars say she is destined for greatness, that she is meant to be Empress of Feng Lu. But only if she embraces the darkness within her. Growing up as a peasant in a forgotten village on the edge of the map, Xifeng longs to fulfill the destiny promised to her by her cruel aunt, the witch Guma, who has read the cards and seen glimmers of Xifeng's majestic future. But is the price of the throne too high?

Because in order to achieve greatness, she must spurn the young man who loves her and exploit the callous magic that runs through her veins--sorcery fueled by eating the hearts of the recently killed. For the god who has sent her on this journey will not be satisfied until his power is absolute. From Goodreads.

Book Depository | Wordery | Goodreads

Trigger Warnings: This book features animal death, problematic physical and emotional abuse, problematic ableism, mention of suicide, someone being whipped, someone being stabbed, murder, and cannibalism.

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