REVIEW: The Haunting by Alex Bell

The Haunting by Alex Bell has a really interesting concept.  I love the idea of a cursed Cornish inn, the idea that it ties into witches and a witch's curse and that the main character comes back into the story 7 years after being injured in an accident at the inn.  However, The Haunting never quite lived up the chills promised from such an intriguing premise.

The setting of this book is The Waterwitch, a Cornish inn that is made from the salvaged timber of a cursed shipwrecked boat.  Our main character is Emma, she's 17 and is in a wheelchair after an accident at the inn occurs when she's 10.  Her family moved away and she's never been back to The Waterwitch.  That is, until her nan, who owns the inn, falls ill and Emma chooses to spend her half term break visiting her grandmother and reacquainting herself with The Waterwitch and also with her old best friend, Jem, and his younger sister, Shell. Ghosts and hauntings ensue.

I think part of the problem for me with The Haunting is that we have a high level of creep factor already.  We've got this creepy inn, an interesting back story and characters with complicated relationships that should provide plenty of tension.  However, I was a bit let-down with the ways in which Emma and Jem interacted with each other.  In that, they barely interacted with each other, despite having what could have been an intense meeting fraught with guilt on Jem's part in his role in Emma's disability or with longing and nostalgia for what they had as a friendship as children? But they had very little to do with each other throughout the story and it was such a disappointment.  And while my expectations we're set that high for the horror or scary elements to the story, I didn't think it was ever realised for me.  I think perhaps the story and build-up towards a frightening ending were just a little bit too subtle for me.

What I did love about the book is Emma's relationship with her guide dog, Bailey and it's Emma and Bailey that I felt provided the emotional heart to the story. I just wish a little bit more was done with the relationships in the story and also with the elements of the paranormal.

REVIEW: Sawbones by Catherine Johnson

I absolutely adored Sawbones by Catherine Johnson.  It's historical fiction, which isn't an area of YA that I read extensively within so I can sometimes be a little bit wary of reading so very much outside of my comfort zone.  However, I really enjoyed another historical story by the same author so I thought I'd give Sawbones a chance as well.  And I'm so glad that I did.  When I read this book earlier this year it was definitely my favourite book I'd read all month and it's just one of those stories that I felt myself thinking about long after I'd finished it.  I'm really looking forward to the sequel.

The main story line in Sawbones follows Ezra McAdam, this teenage boy, who is a surgical apprentice in London in 1792. Ezra is a fantastic character.  He really pulled at my heartstrings.  He's a very knowledgeable and capable 16 year old who is set to have a great future ahead of him being the apprentice to a well-respected surgeon.  However, things end up going very badly wrong for him when a failed break-in attempt means that Ezra is caught up in a string of odd events and he is put into the path of Loveday Finch, who is after questions about the sudden death of her father.  What follows is a fast-paced detective story with some crazy twists and turns. 

There were so many elements to this story that I just absolutely adored.  I thought all of the characterisation was really strong: I loved both Ezra and Loveday as well as their fraught friendship.  I thought Ezra's relationship with the surgeon to whom he is apprenticed was very sweet, if at times to Ezra uncertain.   I loved the exploration of different areas of London during this time period, from operating theatres and markets.  But my all-time favourite is every gruesome and horrifying fact thrown in about surgical practices during 1792.  I couldn't tear my eyes away from the pages when the topic of dissections and amputations and just general medical practices of this time and the ways in which knowledge is imparted.  It was all utterly fascinating to me. 

I was so swept up in this story, in these characters and in this snapshot of what life would have been like.  I really cannot wait to read what happens next.  And as I own the sequel already, I won't have to wait! If you haven't already read Sawbones I really do highly recommend it!

REVIEW: Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield

Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield absolutely broke me.  I thought that I was emotionally prepared to handle this book, as I knew beforehand that it covered quite a heavy subject matter, but ... no. I wasn't.  I was completely knocked over by this book. In short, I was destroyed. But only in the best possible way.  Because while this book is heavy, it is heart-breaking and achingly sad ... it's also really beautiful. And hopeful. And that more than anything shone through as I was reading this book.

Paper Butterflies is June's story. And she tells the story in her own, flicking between chronological events as well as some time in the future where it feels like these two parts are distinctly a before and after but we're not sure what has happened in between.  And right from the first page, I fell in love with June. I felt for her, sure.  Lisa Heathfield dunks us immediately into a horrible situation as June has already started learning ways to survive her horrible childhood home with her father who isn't able to believe his new wife and stepdaughter can be so cruel and inhumane to June. We read of incident after incident of horrible child abuse against June. We witness numerous ways in which June faces acts of absolute cruelty.  But June finds comfort and hope in little things, big things, her friendship with Blister, the boy in the woods. But with that hope can June find freedom?

As I said, June broke my heart. And Lisa Heathfield so skillfully dismantled my heart. I'm not always so 'happy' when authors choose to describe child abuse/cruelty in as much detail as Lisa Heathfield does in Paper Butterflies but at the same time I also appreciated the fact that the author describes psychological abuse as well as other forms of abuse other than a standard form of psychical abuse. I think that a lot of child abuse narratives focus too narrowly on one type of abuse that it was interesting to read of other forms.

I think one of the reasons this book made such an impact on me personally is how rage-inducing several elements are. Obviously that June suffers at the hands of those meant to protect her. But also how little help or support June has available to her. Her father doesn't or chooses not to see. But so do teachers and other adults in June's life that are meant to be there for her.

Another reason I loved this book so much are the relationships. Obviously June and Blister's is the emotional heart of the novel. Blister and his family provide a ray of light in June's life that was very much necessary. I half fell in love with them all as I was reading. But aside from this simple friendship I also found all of the other, more complicated relationships to be fascinating as well, particularly June and her step-sister.

Paper Butterflies is such an incredible book, one that will stay with me for a very long time. It's painful and beautiful all at the same time and if you're up for it, I say give this one a chance.

British Books Challenge 2016

Last year, I hosted the British Books Challenge here on this blog. Towards the end of the year, things got very difficult for me to continue. So in 2016, the reins have been handed back to lovely Kirsty of The Overflowing Library who has hosted the challenge previously.

I will, of course, be participating. I imagine it will be the only challenge I formally take part in this year but I feel like even if my year is just as filled with book slumps as it was in 2015, I'll still manage to easily complete this challenge. You know how much I love my UKYA. To join in the challenge, do visit Kirsty's sign-up page. It's a great challenge and I'm sure it'll be lots of fun!

The very tiptop selection of the books I hope to read during 2016 include (but aren't limited to!)

The It Girl: Team Awkward by Katy Birchall
How Not To Disappear by Clare Furniss
Mind Your Head by Juno Dawson
The Sleeping Prince by Melinda Salisbury
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard
Crush by Eve Ainsworth
Love Song by Sophia Bennett
Maladapted by Richard Kurti
Beetle Boy by MG Leonard

Will you be joining the British Books Challenge 2016?!