August Books

 The song of Achilles- Madeleine Miller

This book was a bit of a left-of-field choice for me. I tend to choose a fast-paced thriller and stay away from a genre like fantasy-romance. But I'd heard the rave reviews from book bloggers and decided to give it a shot. Initially, I struggled to get into it. Miller's sentences were fairly short with little description but her language or style wasn't something that stood out to me. If anything, I felt a stuttering sensation when reading, as though the language wasn't really flowing. As I said, bloggers really raved about this book and many claimed to have been left in tears. From the offset, I didn't feel any emotion towards either Achilles or Patroclus, or their relationship for that matter. Whilst I appreciate that Miller spent a large portion of the book on character and relationship development, they seemed to me to not get along particularly well as the dialogue between them sounded almost stripped back and bare and by the end I really disliked Achilles. Patroclus however did truly flourish as a character and I gained a fondness for him. 3/5

Verity- Colleen Hoover

Verity was the first of the two Hoover novels that I read this month. Advertised as a page-turning thriller, it certainly lived up to that. It built up an interesting plotline and characters, only to end it in disappointment. The ending seemed almost rushed and wasn't thought-through. In fact, it was completely ridiculous and made absolutely no sense whatsoever. One could say that creative license gives Hoover the justified ability to end her novel in this way, but I feel as though she took it just a step too far. There were also loose ends that were either purposeful- perhaps to create anticipation for a sequel? But I think that's just giving Hoover the benefit of the doubt. 3/5

It ends with us- Colleen Hoover

This was the second of Hoover's novels I read this month and was mostly positive on the whole. I stuck with it despite feeling it would turn out to be a trashy fairytale romance but was surprised when it took a turn about a third of the way through. The novel ended with the protagonist being left as a single mother after the love interest of the novel turns out not to be the charming, ambitious dreamboat but instead a pathetic misogynist with an inability to control his desire for violence (spoiler sorry). There were points in the novel where I felt physically sick by the candid scenes of a relationship with a dark side. Hoover effectively pulled me in in the first part of the book with heart-racing, sexy romance, only to crush all hopes for a happy ending and bring me back to reality. 4/5

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