Monster by C.J. Skuse - Book Review

Good Morning folks! (It's probably not morning in the UK but bear with I'm in Florida ok?). Today I am MASSIVELY excited to say that I have a BOOK REVIEW for y'all! This is probably the first review I've done on here since Seraphina in 2012 so yea... it's kinda a big deal for me anyway. I've been sitting on this review since APRIL because the book as you may already know from the post title is only now coming out this week! So at last I can share some of my feels with you.

Title: Monster
Author: C.J. Skuse
Release Date: 24th September 2015
Source: ARC borrowed from JessHeartsBooks who had received it for review from MIRAInk
Synopsis: At sixteen Nash thought that the fight to become Head Girl of prestigious boarding school Bathory would be the biggest battle she’d face. Until her brother’s disappearance leads to Nash being trapped at the school over Christmas with Bathory’s assorted misfits. As a blizzard rages outside, strange things are afoot in the school’s hallways, and legends of the mysterious Beast of Bathory – a big cat rumoured to room the moors outside the school – run wild. Yet when the girls’ Matron goes missing it’s clear that something altogether darker is to blame – and that they’ll have to stick together if they hope to survive. (Taken from Goodreads)

My Review

 Advisory – This review contains a good dollop of swearing. The book itself also contains a fair amount of swearing and violence so if that’s not your thing then consider yourself warned.

I was able to read this months ahead of it's release date thanks to my dear Twinnie Jess but it's kinda been killing me that I couldn't really talk about Monster until now - spoilers dontcha know? Frankly this is one of those books where it’s best for sheer enjoyment of the story if you don’t know much beyond the fact that there are a group of girls who are the last students to leave the Bathory School for Girls before Christmas when a massive snowstorm rolls in and then well... shit gets fucked up from there.

One of the many things I love about CJ’s books is that every single one is completely different from the last. Some authors keep to a similar genre for all of their work but with CJ it’s a delightful lottery every time I get my grubby mitts on a new book. Her debut Pretty Bad Things (my review) was a riotous candy crime-spree through Vegas; Rockaholic was full of hilarious hijinks following an accidental rockstar kidnapping; Dead Romantic was a macabre FrankenRomance whereas Monster is an adrenaline-drenched thriller with a good dose of Baskervillian terror to keep you up at night.

Our main girl Nash has quite a lot on her plate at the start of the book; she’s working her raspberry socks off trying to impress the headmistress enough to win the Head Girl badge, trying to juggle all the pre-Christmas insanity on top of her newest worries for her big brother Seb who’s gone missing in Colombia. Oh yeah and then there’s that troubling incident where she might have seen the legendary Beast of Bathory. Not that she believes in it. ‘Course not because that would be fucking ludicrous.

I read this waaay back at the start of April (For reasons that people who have seen my review of Pretty Bad Things will understand) and I devoured the whole thing in one sitting. I love a good boarding school story and when you mix the isolation brought on by the blizzard, the group of girls from different cliques with their own secrets causing mischief, plus the menace of a wild beast roaming the snow, you have the perfect recipe for knuckle-biting tension and no sleep.

Even in the midst of heightening drama and the increasing terror that something awful will happen to someone you’re very much attached to, CJ still managed to stop me in my tracks with a line that cut to the core of why I read her books around April 7^th and that really encapsulates a lot of the book. That being the idea that the monsters you can’t fight are the worst monsters of all.

Suffice it to say, I was utterly clueless about how this book would end and HOO BOY was I left mind-blown and suitably awed. This is without a doubt C.J.’s best book so far and one that I plan to get my greedy hands on and re-read nearer to Halloween for all the creep-tastic chills and spine-tingling shudders.

You want a hair-raising boarding school thriller to keep you flipping pages well into the night? Go wrangle yourself a copy of Monster. Trust me, you’ll be sorry that you didn’t. 

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Whew! Thank god I've finally got all that off my chest! In all seriousness I can't overstate my appreciation for C.J.'s books in all their blunt, snarky, awesomeness. Even 4 years after my grandad's death I'm still finding comfort and distraction in her words. It might be a little weird to associate a reading experience with such a devastating event but as J.K Rowling wrote "words are our greatest source of magic" and it just so happened that C.J.'s were the words that helped me deal with a very difficult time. I am so grateful for her books for that reason.

A slight side-note that made me even happier about reading Monster - in the arc version (will have to see with the finished book) on the inside of the FRONT cover is a quote from ME! My review of Pretty Bad Things is quoted!! It is as In the Library of LadyViolet but it's me all the same! The same quote was in the back of Dead Romantic as well so now that's two books that I've been quoted in! Considering how I've never been a really "big" blogger it is something I find really exciting.

Anyway before the day runs away from me I shall be off.

What did you think to the review?

Ray x

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In non-bookish news...

About this time last year I set up a second blog called Ray May Write which was intended to be more of a writing/studying blog as I was about to start two Open University modules in French and Creative Writing. The new blog was supposed to be where I could chronicle my progress and share snippets of stuff I did for my writing module as well talk about my own novel project.

As you might imagine that was a spectacular failure and I burnt myself out over there pretty much before the modules even started. There are a few posts from this year but the most recent is from June when I had a wee bit of an anxiety attack. That is a bit of a downer I’ll tell you now.

That blog might get a bit of a revival though soon as I’m about to start a new module which is also kinda relevant to this blog. It’s a Children’s Literature module and the 1^st Harry Potter book is literally on my reading list ^_^. While I am excited I am also nervous about the fact that I’ve not “studied” literature since my English Lit GCSE way back in 2007 (fuck I am oooold). This is a Level 3 module, like we’re talking 3^rd-year-of-uni-this-is-going-to-count-towards-your-degree-classification level module. Yikes.

Luckily despite all the stress I had doing my two Level 2 modules at the same time (Anyone who follows my Twitter & IG might remember how fun April was) I did actually pass both modules with what I think is a 2:1 which is insane because I fucking HATED every second of my French module and procrastinated the shit out of every assignment. I am the luckiest bitch, how does anyone stand me?

While my Uni modules were going on last year I had very little brain power to devote to working on my novel which I spent basically the first half of 2014 slaving over. I technically had fuck-loads of time that I could have used but I’m an awful human being with no concept of time management. However folk will probably have noticed the resurgence in #amwriting and #amediting posts on my Twitter and IG since June.

I’ve thrown myself back into my novel doing a combination of revising/redrafting/finishing the draft while I’m relatively free (I have been working an odd schedule during the week at my mother’s office). When I stopped working on the project last November I had over 80K of words written and the ending was done save for one chapter. The main problem was the pesky middle where nothing really existed past Chapter 13 until somewhere around Chapter 21 or 22 (my chapter numbers are going to be a mess before long). I had vague ideas about some of the things that need to happen in the gap before I got sidetracked by my uni assignments but nothing got planned out.

Now in my summer “break” I’ve been working to fill this hole although I’m only now getting to the edge of it. I’ve been reworking all the chapters leading up to the gap since several needed redrafting completely while at least one needed writing for the first time – I am a fucking idiot for writing this first draft so out of order. So it’s taken me a long time to get to this point which is ridiculous since I was more productive when I was writing only in the evenings after a day at my mentally exhausting full-time job!

Since last year I have read a metric shit-ton about writing process and craft (Mostly from SusanDennard’s Ah-mazing website which has the best writing resources EVAH, plus she is the loveliest person who writes awesome books to boot – more on that in the near future). Adding all that onto doing a whole module on creative writing where I had to write to deadlines and be objective while editing my own writing I feel like I’m a much stronger writer than I was this time last year.

I can look back at my work from early 2014 (with much cussing and wincing) and see where the issues are and come up with solutions to fix them rather than just despair at the general shit-ness of everything. Even as I’m working through this current draft (which I want to call Draft 1.5 cos it’s not really a 2^nd Draft yet) I’m mentally earmarking bits that I’ll need to revisit on the next round of revisions when I go hardcore and print out the whole damn thing and attack it with highlighters and index cards.

I held off from doing that until I’d got a complete manuscript with no missing chapters and scenes from the main plotlines so I can read it through from start to finish (there are two subplot POVs which I’ve yet to draft because I’m not quite sure how & where they’ll slot in amongst the other chapters). But once I’m done with this round of redrafting I am super excited to go to my nearest staples or whatever and come home with practically an entire ream of paper that will be my book.

So that’s currently where I’m at with non-reading bookish things. Steadily plugging away on the 2^nd act of my book so it meets up with 1 & 3 while everything else gets a serious sprucing-up. Then once the start of October comes I’ll be diving into OU studies again with the hope that I can actually keep on top of the workload and not look like an idiot at my first tutorial on the 10^th XD.

Bookish updates will hopefully be on the way here once I get home and I’m able to do things like film a book haul (it’ll be a big’un), actually post my reading list for the year so far and do several author event write-ups which I’ve been to this year. There are a couple of reviews that I am hoping to post before then for some September Releases that I have a lot of feelings about. Anyone who talks to me on twitter will likely know what at least two of those books are :P Especially those people who were DMing me to share their own feels XD.

Stay tuned my lovelies!
Ray 

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Queen of the Crappy Bloggers

This is going to come as no surprise to anyone who might have followed this blog for a long time.

I am awful at keeping up with blogging.

To anyone who stumbles across this blog randomly or if they click through from either my Twitter or my Youtube channel, I must seem like such a disappointment when they see that the last fucking post I did was in JANUARY.

I am on twitter constantly talking about books and writing. Like you have to cleave me from my phone to stop me checking my feed multiple times a minute. I flail over books I've read, and this year I have read a *lot* of books, not quite at 2010-Rachel level but I've probably almost hit my Goodreads challenge target (another thing I have not updated in months).

Yet you never see anything resembling a review from me. And that's so crap. I have such in-depth discussions about books with my friends on Twitter that it seems insane that I don't formulate these thoughts into posts that other people can find and read months after the fact.

So I'm gonna give this blogging malarkey another go. I have a lot of bookish stuff to talk about from the year so far plus several fantastic books that I have read recently which have literally taken over my brain for weeks.

I'm armed with a list of ideas so let's see how this ship fares. She's a bit rickety but she might still sail.

Bear with me folks
Ray

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My Best Books of 2014!!

I meant to do this at least a week ago but I was a bit preoccupied by getting my Creative Writing assignment done.

I made a vlog of my Favourite books of 2014 earlier today which I'll embed below with the full list of books & authors mentioned. I also talk through the stats for my reading including the woeful lack of non-fiction books and the domination of YA in my reading (which is by no means a bad thing). The list isn't in any particular order but I rated them all as 5 Stars.



My Top Reads in 2014
The Forever Song by Julie Kagawa (Blood of Eden #3)
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan (Lynburn Legacy #3)
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass #3)
Isla & the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments #6)
Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (DoSaB #3)
Half Bad by Sally Green (Half Bad #1)
Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me #3)
Taste of Darkness by Maria V. Snyder (Avry of Kazan #3)

Honourable Mentions
Cress by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #3)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
It's not you it's me by Mhairi McFarlane
Half Wild by Sally Green (Half Bad #2)

The above list is only a fraction of the really amazing books I read in 2014, there are loads of books that I read that I rated 4 & 4.5 stars which I would recommend but these happen to be my 5 Star Reads. The Full list of books that I read in 2014 can be accessed from the bar below the header.

Were any of these in your list of Top Books from 2014? Are you planning on reading some of these in 2015? Should I be looking out for certain books to read soon?

I shall hopefully blog again soon about... something, I don't know what yet. I have a worrying amount of work to do for my Open University modules over the next few months so I shall have to focus myself on those.

Happy Reading until next time!
Ray

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Reading Goals for 2015

I know I haven't yet done a post about my Top whatever-random-number books of 2014 or looked at my detailed reading stats but I'll get to that soonish. Today I wanted to lay down some of the Reading Goals for 2015 with the full expectation that I'll look back at the end of the year and realise I've completed none of them. But hey-ho let's do it anyway.

Reading Goals for 2015

1. Read 120 books - I've downgraded this massively from last year's goal of 150 because with me trying to finish my first draft of my novel I have spent a lot less time reading so having a large total of books to read is just not going to happen. Making it 120 is more manageable and I'll feel less like a failure if I only just reach it.

2. Re-reads need to be only 25% of the Reading Goal - I had 53 of my 2014 reads being re-reads which was about 42% of my overall total so I want to try and get that number down to only a quarter so based on my goal that means only re-reading 30 books in 2015. It'll be a challenge but I have more than enough unread books to go the whole year without re-reading but there are some thing that I just have to read annually :P

3. Read some Non-Fiction - I read literally no non-fiction in 2014, not a single book. So I'd like to read at least 1 book a month in 2015, two if possible since I got a lot of non-fiction books for Christmas and I have a lot in my collection.

4. Clear some old TBR titles - I have a worrisome amount of books that have been in my collection since before I started cataloging my library and recording my reading so I really would like to get to some of those ancient titles this year *coughTheBookThiefcough*.

5. If I have something to say about a book, write a review - Doesn't matter how long or short it is, if I get to the end of a book and want to say something about it I ought to get it written down and post it. Most of my thoughts on my reading in 2014 have been voiced during videos I put up on Youtube which comparatively few people see so I need to try and write some kind of actual review here that people can actually find.

I think those goals will be sufficient for the time being, I don't want to set myself loads of really specific challenges that I may not want to do when it comes round to it. I could say I  want to read more classics or some other new genre but I don't want to force myself to read certain books since it might feel too much like assigned reading.

What are some of your Reading Goals for 2015?

Laters
Ray

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4th Quarter Reading Round-off

Oops, I vanished off the face of the blogging planet again didn't I? Not only did I ignore my writing/studying blog but I also left this one to languish for 2-3 months. Sorry.
So I missed doing my Reading Round-offs for October & November, but I'm gonna chuck them in with my December reading now. It's not that many books when you realise that due to Nanowrimo (which I did attempt and failed again but not with such disastrous side-effects) I only read 5 books in all of November.

Here we go!

October
100. Misty Falls by Joss Stirling (1/10/2014 PM)
101. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (15/10/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
102. Talon by Julie Kagawa (15/10/2014 PM)
103. Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan (17/10/2014 AM)
104. Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle (19/10/2014 AM)
105. Frozen (Heart of Dread) by Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnston (20/10/2014 AM)
106. Ghost of a Chance by Rhiannon Lassiter (21/10/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
107. Something Strange & Deadly by Susan Dennard (24/10/2014 AM)
108. A Darkness Strange & Lovely by Susan Dennard (26/10/2014 AM)
109. Princess of the Silver Woods by Jessica Day George (27/10/2014 AM)
110. The Sleeper & the Spindle by Neil Gaiman (30/10/2014 PM)
111. A Dawn most Wicked by Susan Dennard (30/10/2014 PM)

November
112. Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout (2/11/2014 PM)
113. 3 Weeks with Lady X by Eloisa James (6/11/2014 AM)
114. It's Not Me It's You by Mhairi McFarlane (9/11/2014 AM)
115. The Copper Promise by Jen Williams (17/11/2014 PM)
116. Winger by Andrew Smith (26/11/2014 PM)

December
117. My True Love Gave to Me by Stephanie Perkins & others (5/12/2014 PM)
118. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (15/12/2014 PM)
119. The Falconer by Elizabeth May (17/12/2014 AM)
120. Half Wild by Sally Green (25/12/2014 PM)
121. The Selection by Kiera Cass (26/12/2014 AM)
122. The Elite by Kiera Cass (27/12/2014 AM)
123. The One by Kiera Cass (27/12/2014 PM)
124. The Selection stories by Kiera Cass (27/12/2014 PM)
125. You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane (29/12/2014 AM) 

October's Book of the Month

UNMADE!!! Holy crapsticks did this book put me through the wringer. There is a reason I dubbed Sarah "The Soul Destroyer" in my last post. But what a fantastic end to an amazing series even if some bits did utterly break my damn heart *sobs* I look forward to what she's gonna write next although I am fully prepared for it to stampede all over my feels again.
Honourable mention goes to Susan Dennard's Something Strange & Deadly series which I started in October although I still have to get hold of the final book (I have an email that I've been meaning to send for a month about that). It's such an awesome historical paranormal series with a fantastic heroine Eleanor who gets caught up with a ragtag bunch of people who are on the hunt for the Dead, the zombie creatures which are growing in number in Philadelphia. Eleanor is also trying to find out how the Dead are linked to her brother who has gone missing. There's action, society hijinks, Eleanor thwacking zombies with a parasol and well Daniel Sheridan. Need I say more?
Susan is also besties with Sarah J. Maas and they're doing an epic space opera story called Starkillers together on Tumblr which you MUST read!!

November's Book of the Month

Considering how I only read 5 books this month they were a bloody good bunch since 4 of them were rated either 4 or 4.5 stars out of 5. Top banana goes to It's Not Me It's You by Mhairi McFarlane which I was put on to by Twinnie Jess after her gushing review - I don't read a lot of general women's fiction, I am mostly a solid YA girl but this book has made me declare my love for Mhairi and vow to read everything she writes from now on. It's hysterically funny, like you're going to be sat reading on a bus holding back your ugly snorting laughs kind of funny. Her characters are amazing and so vivid that you want to be besties by the end. The romance actually caught me by surprise, it didn't come from where I expected but it was fab and made me stay up waaay too later to finish it.
Also Winger by Andrew Smith was an awesome YA Contemp that dealt with a great range of topics and shocked me to tears at the end but I am so fond of Ryan Dean now that I'm dying for the sequel Stand-off which is coming next September.
Also ALSO The Copper Promise by Jen Williams was the first in a fantasy series that had a bunch of characters that I fell in love with (Grumpy Frith included!) and a world that was so rich and extensive even in this first book so I'm really looking forward to where things will go in the second book The Iron Ghost which is due out next March.

December's Book of the Month

I think if you live in the UK you might just have heard about this one - like from everyone. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, it has been the book that has exploded in 2014 and was not only Waterstone's Book of the Year but also the National Book of the Year. I read it after hearing about it from all of my colleagues at Waterstones (where I worked this Christmas season! :D) and my god was everyone right to gush about  it! It's set in 17th century Amsterdam and follows the story of Petronella, an eighteen year old girl who gets married off to the extremely wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt. He buys her an beautiful doll house replica of their house in Amsterdam as a wedding present and Nella finds a Miniaturist to make furnishings for it. But the exquisite works of tiny art which arrive from the Miniaturist are more than what Nella ordered and they start to tell an eerie story of what changes are coming in their lives at the Brandt house. Beautifully lyrical and suspenseful story that will linger in your mind long after you've finished it.
Honourable Mentions to Half Wild by Sally Green which I managed to read by fortuitous chance since an ARC was sent to my branch of Waterstones and I was able to borrow it before I finished there. I'll be doing a review that will hit the interwebs nearer the publication date of March 23rd. Also I finished My True Love Gave to Me and I was surprised that I enjoyed all of the stories, some I adored. I don't usually find that I like all of the stories in an anthology like this but this clearly was a magical collection of authors. Rainbow, Steph & Laini's stories were my ultimate favs which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.

So there we are! My Reading Round-off for the last three months and if you would believe it from October to now I've only had 2 re-reads! (that I've recorded because you don't need to know that I binged the entire Shatter Me series again when I was meant to be doing a writing assignment). But seriously guys I'm impressed that I made it only 2 out of 25 books read. It's probably a record.

I will be doing a Favourites of 2014 post soon I promise once I have all my reading statistics configured the way my nerdy brain wants them. I also want to do a 2015 Resolutions and goals post for both Reading and my Writing.

Hope everyone had a Great Christmas and Happy New Year if I don't see you before then!
Ray

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September Reading Round-off

Well hello there folks!! I know it has been quite a while since anything got posted on this here blog but that's because I've been rather busy over on my new writing/study blog Ray May Write fretting and procrastinating my way through September. Which has disappeared alarmingly fast, I'm less than a week away from my 24th birthday and only a few days away from the start of my two OU modules which is a little scary.

But I'm here today to do my September reading wrap-up and tell you what my Book of the Month is, it should be a fairly obvious choice if you follow me on twitter :P

Books Read in September
89. Mastiff by Tamora Pierce (8/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
90. Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (11/9/2014 AM)
91. Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini (12/9/2014 PM)
92. Cross Stitch/Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (15/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
93. Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce (17/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
94. Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce (17/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
95. Speechless by Hannah Harrington (21/9/2014 PM)
96. Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan (23/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
97. Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan (25/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
98. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (29/9/2014 PM)
99. Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout (30/9/2014 PM)

Oops again with only 4 new reads out of 11 but who cares?

Book of the Month
This is an easy choice as you'll well know that I've been absolutely *dying* to read the rest of this after I got something like 25 chapters in over the YALC weekend. I had quite a time getting hold of a copy since I hadn't realised that the UK release date was over a week later than the US date so I expended rather a lot of stress and energy getting myself to Waterstones when they didn't have it in yet. *sigh* But when I did finally get my grubby mitts on a copy everything was right with the world. I devoured this book, I fucking loved this book and all its characters and the world and dammit I just love Sarah J. Maas ok? Heir of Fire was amazing and I don't quite know what I'm going to do with myself until the fourth book comes out. Thankfully we do have the epic sounding Court of Thorns and Roses due out in the Spring(?) so I can still get my Sarah fix before I find out what's cracking with Celeana. And I always have my re-read binge before the next release :P

Books I'm looking forward to in October
Now I'm going to keep the rest of this brief because I need to go be useful and help get dinner ready. I have a few things that I'm very excited for in October. One of them I finished this afternoon and have already flailed all over Twitter about - Misty Falls by Joss Stirling is part of a series that I adore and love to re-read over and over so I nearly had a heart attack in the library earlier when this book which technically doesn't even come out until tomorrow was already there on the shelf! Like a good addict I snatched it off the shelf and took it home to speed through. I may even re-read before I have to take it back to the library.

I'm also still trying my damnedest to get hold of a copy of Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan since I did my series re-read in prep for the release on the 25th and then no bloody bookstores near me have the book! So it will be the mission of early October to get it and see what Sarah the Soul Destroyer (as I shall call her to differentiate from Sarah of the Sexy Fae) has in store for me. From what I've heard so far, heartbreak and sadness but also perfection. So who knows what the fuck is going to happen?

There's also My true Love gave to Me which is the awesome sounding anthology of Christmas stories from a bunch of my fav authors. I am super excited for this and it should be a great book to read either in October or closer to Christmas when it'll really be fitting.

Anyways that's all I gots for you now, see you guys soon maybe.
Ray

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