August Fairyloot 2019

 

So first things first. I am not being paid for this. My husband bought me a subscription to Fairyloot for my 30th Birthday (this July).  The August box is the first box I have ever received. And it did not disappoint. I cant even begin to explain how much I enjoyed opening this box and how good the quality is of all the items. So lets break down this unboxing.

 I will add, I had to open this in my kitchen, because my 3 year old would have been all over it, and I literally couldn't wait until he was in bed as I had been waiting since July to get a box!

I have seen enough unboxings on YouTube to know the card on top is the spoiler card, so I put that to one side straight away. At this point I just want to say I couldn't believe how beautiful the box was on the inside. I am not going to be precious about keeping the box, but it wasn't lost on me how lovely it looked when I opened it. Underneath the spoiler card was some lovely purple packing,it looked high quality and well packed when I opened this box. Now onto the stuff...

The first thing I pulled out was this set of 3x scrunchies. Honestly not my favorite item in the box, and I didn't initially recognise the fandom. When I checked the spoiler card and saw it was for the Graceling trilogy, I must admit I liked them a little bit more, however I have only read the first book in the series and that was quite a few years ago. Once I knew it was easy to see the references to each of the books; Green for Graceling, Red for Fire and Blue for Bitterblue. It is really unlikely I would wear these out, but I do put my hair up for bed so I have designated these for bedtime scrunchies.

The next item i pulled out was a Candle from 'Flick the Wick', again I didn't recognise the fandom as 'Slaking Jack the Ripper' is actually on my Kindle to read, I in fact bought it a couple of weeks ago with my birthday voucher. So the smell is a coffee and chocolate scent for the character Thomas Cresswell. All I can say is the scent is heavenly! I hope I like this series just based on this scent alone. It primarily smells chocolate, but more on the Shea/coco butter type of smell. Which happens to be one of my favorite scents. I literally made an audible moan when I opened this to smell. I haven't tried burning this yet but I really hope it emits a good amount of smell.

The next item is a Lord of the Rings themed mirror. Not much to say about this item, its a nice enough, simple small mirror. Again like with the scrunchies I'm probably not going to use it as if it was a bag mirror I would have liked a flip open back, otherwise its just going to get scratched it. I a a Tolkien fan, but my husband is more of a Tolkien fan than me, and he has in fact claimed this item for his man cave. This item along with the scrunchies were my least liked items, but that doesn't mean i disliked them. I liked them but compared to everything else they were the least impressive items.

This item was my first little 'squeee' moment. I was slightly confused pulling out this little pink box initially then I saw on the back it said cutlery set. I opened it and found a lovely little pink velvet bag. when I opened this I nearly died with happiness. In side was a set of chopsticks, a fork and a spoon. All rainbow coloured! I loved them straight away, then I noticed it had some engraving on it. When I read the engraving I knew straight away what fandom it was from. The Lunar Chronicles. I have read all but the last book in this series and loved them all. I will be using these for work.

 Then I pulled out this beautiful, very good quality, cushion cover. It is listed as a pillow case, but as far as I am concerned pillowcases are rectangles, not squares. Either way, its a lovely item, and another one I recognised, the cushions read, "You will burn for you are an ember in the ashes". I am actually currently reading 'An Ember in the Ashes', loving it by the way. So whilst I am not currently part of the fandom, I feel like I will be soon. I did wonder how good the quality of items like this would be, as I have recently bought a 'Court of Thorns and Roses' cushion cover from 'Wish' for a couple of £'s and I wondered if this was where these companies got cushions covers as well.... I can confidently say they do not. This is a lovely item I will be using when I get a cushion filler. 

This may be one of my favourite items in the whole box. It is a laser cut metal book mark complete with a Brandon Sanderson quote. It is a beautiful rose gold colour with a shiny grey tassel. Honestly I love this book mark, I feel awful saying I haven't yet read any Brandon Sanderson novels, but again the Mistborn saga that this bookmark showcases is on my to read list. It is incredible quality, it has some really delicate sections but these are sturdy and none of it feels like it is going to break.

  

This box just keeps giving! These are the next two cards in the new tarot card set. These appear to be Harry and Hermione. Obviously I am Ravenclaw, I'm completely into Harry Potter. It was the original series that got me into reading, got me excited about a book release. I'm into it! As this is my first box I have actually missed 4 cards so far 2x sets of 2 cards. I am hoping to buy these separately as I would love this to be a full collected set. The artwork is beautiful, the quality is lovely and has a matt type finished which is much nicer then if it was a shiny finish. They are just really lovely.

Lastly, the book. The real reason everyone gets this box. I was complete in the dark about what book it was going to be. I was very pleased with the book, it is a book I had added to my Goodreads 'want to read' list. Now lets talk about the 'exclusive features'. It has beautiful art work on the inner dust jacket and obviously is signed, this is lovely and the book itself is a stunning teal/turquoise colour. I have read 2 or 3 chapters already and I can tell I am going to enjoy this book. It does tend to take me longer to ready standard books now compared to my read time with eBooks, mostly because I tend to have the most time to read at night, and my husband doesn't like the light on. So it is much easier to simply pick up my Kindle rather than my every piling up real books.

Overall I am in love with Fairyloot. My subscription will be continuing and I am Keen to get some of the standalone release editions of new books. I will be getting my husband to order the 'Queen of Nothing' box as I am just going to love it, I can tell. If you are on the fence, get one, try it, I believe it is seriously good value.

No Man Can Tame (05/04/19)

So, I have been in a bit of a book slump this year. I work hard. I have a two year old. I just don't have the time or the brain power for the types of books I used to read. 800 page epic novels are just too taxing on my time presently. Until I have the time like I use to, I want instant gratification from the books I read.

Now when I say this book is trash, I don't mean the story is rubbish. Far from it I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. What I mean is it isn't 'high' fiction, its probably not going to win any awards. What is is though, is a simple to read, quick paced, sexy book. I am not going to drag out descriptions about the characters and any flaws they may have had in character development (there were some, if I am to be anyway critical). I have read much much much worse books by 'high quality' authors. This was at it's simplest form a book that I have enjoyed reading. I enjoyed it so much that i will most likely read any future novels.

I also feel like it actually wouldn't take too much for this story to actually become 'high' fiction. but when a book it this short there is only so much character and world building that can be done. If it were ever re-edited to be expanded, would I read it again.... yes. The skeleton of the story is very good. but it is at present definitely a book written to get as quick as it can to the juicy (sexy) parts. some good shameless smut is included. So if you aren't into that, this is not the book for you.

This book well and truly got me out of my reading slump.

Hush Hush (02/02/19)

So this book took over a month for me to read, which considering how its not a relatively long book baffles me. I was not compelled to read this book when I had a spare few minutes. I was not finding myself wanting to stay up just a little bit longer to finish the next chapter. It was honestly really lacking in so many ways.

I love reading YA fantasy/paranormal/mystical books. I love them! I have enjoyed series like House of Night, Sookie Stackhouse, Hunger Games, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I even liked Twilight back before the films. But I just don't get this book at all.

Less than a month after reading it I can barely remember anything that happened. None of the characters were likeable, swoon worthy or even vaguely pleasant. Her mother was frankly useless. The police who randomly seemed to show up completely incompetent and frankly rude (but not in a realistic way).

The 'heroine'.... if you could see or feel how hard my eyes want to roll back into my head thinking about her would give you a better understanding of how I felt towards her. She has no conviction to anything. She isn't even being portrayed as dumb, but that is what she is. Her best 'friend', just vile, not even funny at all.

The main 'love interest' .... called Patch, again with a tendon pulling eye roll. he was the only vaguely interesting character. But even there this book just complete missed the mark with me.

Honestly I have no more words for this book. It seemed to be about nothing at all, and i cant honestly remember any redeeming element of it. Honestly surprised it has 3.something stars on Goodreads. If i could give it less than 1 star I would have. I likely would have given it -Stars. Safe to say i will not be reading any of the others.

Heir of Fire (09/09/18)

So this is the third installment in the Throne of Glass series, following straight on from Crown of Midnight, we pick straight back up with Celeana and how she is still devastated from the loss of her close friend.

This review will have spoilers in, its impossible to talk about a 3^rd series book without them!

So I’ll start with what I thought I wouldn’t like. Rowan. And Celeana.

When I started this book I was completed all about Chaol and Celeana… I probably still am deep down. But I can see something beautiful and different blossoming with Rowan. I feel like Chaol saved Celena in ToG but in HoF it is Celeana/Aelin who saves Rowan. And I think after all that happens in HoF Celeana/Aelin needs to not feel like she has been saved. She needs to be the hero of her own story.

But yes for a good third of the book I could kind of see Chaol being pushed aside and I was not happy about it.

Dorian’s love life filled me with such hope…. Then utterly shattered me. I actually applaud the author for that. To often in these types of books you can see the love interests playing out in a very samey samey kind of way. Not with this one. I am still raw and broken from it. I had to put the book on my lap for a few mins to really absorb what was happening.

I loved the flash backs to Aelin’s past and hope we get to see more of these in future books. I feel the story is becoming very intricate now and has really found its way. I know a lot wont like it because of the changes in direction but realistically for Aelin to get done what is needed, big changes needed to happen and the changes in her in this book to me, seem realistic and purposeful.

I also really enjoyed the character shift to Manon, the Blackbeak Witch. Hers in a very interesting storyline and I look forward to seeing it develop and how it links to Aelin’s story overall. For me this was a good solid read which once I got over the whole Chaol issue, I found I enjoyed immensely and look forward the book number 4!

Call Me By Your Name (03/01/19)

So I heard lots of good things about this book. It was being (has been) made into a film. So I thought I'll give this a go. And after the effort it was to read this book, all I can say is, meh.

The were elements I really enjoyed, where i started to go "Ooo its starting to get good" and then I would be dragged back into really abstract ways to describe the scene. I honestly don't mind a bit of well done descriptions of visuals of feeling etc. But this just felt pointless. I think its a very, arty, type of writing and honestly its just not my cup of tea.

The story as a whole, is interesting and would normally be my cup of tea. Over a beautiful hot summer in Italy a young professor finishing off his philosophy book  and the son of the people housing him in Italy begin a romantic affair in secret. The concept of the story brilliant and refreshingly new. The execution... honestly, not my style and the writing style really stopped me following the story easily. I just like a bit more instant gratification from my books.