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I read a lot of books and I write about them on here. Mummy Geek is sometimes a guest blogger....people seem to love her.....Oh and you can find me on Twitter.....@book_geek_says. Shortlisted for Blog of the Year by the 2015 Love Stories Awards...THANK YOU!!

Sunday 29 April 2012

Review: Bitterblue

Publisher: Gollancz
Price: £ 12.99


This was sent to me for review by the lovely @jon_weir!! He is a good Tweeter to follow by the way!!

Anyway, this is the third book in a trilogy. I haven't read the first two and to be honest, I don't think I lost any enjoyment from not having read any of the others. Things were explained thoroughly and continuously! The only big I didn't get right away was Gracelings and their Graces, however, that cleared up pretty quick! I do love fantasy and I enjoy a YA book so rolling the two together seemed like a perfect idea!! :-) I do think I maybe would read the first two if they came along. However, now I've read this one I may have ruined them for myself!

There wasn't a clear sense of time or period which did prevent me slightly from being completely drawn in to the story. When a word was used that seemed out of place, for example Balls, cropped up, it flung me out of the story and back to the real world. That was a tad disappointing. However, I spoke to a book publishing friend of mine about that and she said that this has become the on trend thing to do at the moment. I will have to get used to it!

I found the story interesting and compelling to read. The odd bit was very upsetting and distressing and I do think that they may be a bit too brutal for a young adult audience. I'm not sure that people that young should be reading such upsetting things. Yet, maybe the brutal inclusion of certain things made this book more enjoyable for me as a more adult person (dunno if 25 counts as adult really.)

I loved several of the characters including Giddon, Teddy and Saf. OOO, I also loved Death and Lovejoy. However, I didn't really get down with Bitterblue herself. I found her to be really winey and feeble and a bit pathetic. All she did was cry and mope and rant 'oooooooh poor me I'm the queen, oh poor me no one tells me anything, oh poor me I had a horrible Dad.' Shut up and pull yourself together girl! You have loads of power and you know what to do and how to do it!! Bloody hell, pull yourself together!

Overall, I enjoyed the read. It had everything expected of a YA fantasy novel and didn't leave any things hanging that made me think what the hell!

Happy Reading

Book Geek
:-)

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