Booktober Weeks One and Two

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Greetings to all my fellow book nerds! We are almost at the end of week two of Booktober can you believe it? Honestly the time is flying by and I am a little behind on where I wanted to be with my reading for this month… no matter! Here is a roundup of what I have been sinking my teeth into and enjoying! Like many book nerds, there have been a number of books on my bookshelf in the ‘Must read next’ pile. Honestly, that list has gotten longer and longer in the past year. So for this year’s Booktober, I decided to make a dent in the huge pile of must reads I have on my shelf. 99.9% of the time I am stuck in YA books and usually enjoy the fantasy, SciFi or Period/Historical genres. If this comes down to a mixture of my Dyslexia reading age and my passions, I have no idea. I like to think I read what I enjoy and the rest goes from there. 

Week 1 and 2 of Booktober saw me finally finish ‘Children of Eden’ by Joey Graceffa, ‘A Discovery of Witches’ by Deborah Harkness and ‘Elites of Eden’ by Joey Graceffa. Both ‘Children of Eden’ and ‘A Discovery of Witches’ have been on my bookshelf for a while now. I decided to buy the other two books in Joey’s series to give his writing style a proper chance in October. I don’t want to give too much of an in-depth story review as I hate people spoiling books on me. Before we look at a short review of each book, the most important thing must be looked at… 

My October reading essentials!

Drink of choice: Butler’s Hot Chocolate – with the cooler weather finally coming, it is important to be cozy when you read.

Bookmark of choice: Metal pin style with the Jane Austen quote: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”– Just because Jane was a bad ass and let’s be real reading or intellectual conversations are inspiration of creativity. 

My reading oasis of choice: The couch in my bedroom wrapped up in one of my many blankets from Penney’s/Camp Adventures/Disney store. 

Now onto the books:

Book 1: ‘Children of Eden’ by Joey Graceffa

 If you are into YA Dystopian genre books, this one is right up your alley! ‘Children of Eden’ sees a futuristic world where having a second child is against the law as, Earth has been poisoned and is trying to heal itself. Eden is the utopia that the remaining humans will have to wait for thousands of years until the EcoPan heals the world. The writing style takes a while to get used to and it is one of the main reasons why I gave it 3 stars.

The story itself follows Rowan, an illegal second child who has been hidden in her family’s compound for sixteen years. One night she decides to escape the compound for a night of adventure. As to be expected, not everything goes to plan. She finds herself on the run from the EcoPan and life as she knows it will never be the same. 

Honestly, I loved this book for the most part. I am a sucker for attention to detail; to understand the workings of Eden was something I enjoyed reading. The society governed by an animated form of technology called the EcoPanopticon. As it is a complex system, some might see this section of the book as boring to get through. It is really down to personal preference.

Important things to note: Eye colour is important. Keep an eye out for the kaleidoscope eye colour. Also, the major plot twists included in this story are interesting and you won’t easily guess one of them. 

Rating: 3 / 5.

Page Count: 278.

Book 2: ‘A Discovery of Witches’ by Deborah Harkness

This book has changed my list of my top five favourite authors of all time! A Discovery of Witches is a YA Fantasy filled with daemons, witches and vampires. Tangled inside the pages is a love story that can stand up against the likes of Romeo and Juliet. Harkness herself is an academic professor and I adored how she used her field of study to inspire an entire book series. I should admit I was late to this book as; I only bought the book after finishing series one of ‘A Discovery of Witches’ on Sky Atlantic earlier in the year. 

The book follows Diana Bishop as she tries to ignore her witch powers instead, she is an academic carrying out research inspired by her witchy ancestors. Her research leads her to looking at Ashmore 782, an alchemical manuscript. Her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, daemons, witches, and vampires descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon treasure lost for centuries. She is the only one to have seen in it in centuries and a woman hunt ensues as the manuscript disappears after Diana puts it back into the achieves. Queue a dramatic underworld dispute! I also need to include how much more I loved Matthew’s character in the book in comparison to the series. I am hoping Diana grows on me once I read the second book. 

One reason why I didn’t give this book 5 stars is that if you are looking for a light read where you don’t have to pay attention to too many details, this book isn’t for you. This book bridged the gap of learning new things academically for me in a fantasy story setting and I honestly could not put it down. For those of you who are interested in the series but not ready to commit to the book series yet, Sky Atlantic made a TV Series of it last year. Series Two airs sometime in 2020 and I cannot wait. There are a few stark contrasts between the book series and the TV Series but both are good as stand alones also. 

Rating: 4 / 5 

Page Count: 579.

Book 3: ‘Elites of Eden’ by Joey Graceffa

Honestly, I don’t know where to start with this book without giving away most of the plot. Firstly, the writing has gotten better. Anyone who knows Joey from his Youtube Channel will be awe that writing is not his first job. Having said that ‘Elites of Eden’ is showing promise of him unlocking his true writing style. I look forward to seeing in the third instalment of the book next week and how that pans out! 

‘Elites of Eden’ picks up where ‘Children of Eden’ left off. This was the first book that I do not have a favourite within the love triangle aspect! It has never happened before I love the two characters equally. As for the rest of the story, loose ends tied up and more plot twists that will make your head spin! The overall story is interesting and exciting; the one downfall I think it has is we get told about the complex society but I personally would like to have been shown more of it and not just told! 

Rating: 3.5 / 5 

Page Count: 288

Weeks 3 and 4 

As I said before I am slightly behind on my reading for Booktober (this is just a personal goal as we have many gigs and a trip to London over the next few weeks). Hopefully the following books will be discussed: 

• ‘Rebels of Eden’ by Joey Graceffa
• ‘Sever’ by Lauren Destefano
• TBC

Until next time Book nerds! Happy reading!