READING: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

Publication date: September 10 2019

Published by: Redhook

Genre: YA, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Mystery, Suspense

Rating: 

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.

Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

3.5

Beautiful, magical story but the writing was too extra for a YA advertised book.
Nothing wrong with that on paper (no pun intended) but seeing that the story was so information-heavy and action packed, I would rather the book was easier to read and the writing had a better flow.

As it was, I found it hard to pick up, choosing to read something else instead and coming back to it two days later and only because I was drawn to that amazing story. Harrow should have been clearer on her message and the book's genre and target audience.

READING: The House of Salt and Sorrow by Erin A. Craig

Publication date: August 6 2019

Published by: Delacorte

Genre: YA, Children's Fiction, Re-telling, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Romance

Rating: 

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters, their father, and stepmother. Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls' lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.

Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn't sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Because who—or what—are they really dancing with?

When Annaleigh's involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it's a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family—before it claims her next. 

This would have been a 2 if not for the last 70 pages or so which were rather unexpectedly pleasant.

Confession time: I think I might be getting a tad too old for classically written YAs. I use to love them in my 20s but now (ahem getting closer to my 40s) I find them incredibly boring and monotone. I want more in a book than run of the mill writing and one dimensional characters.

I apologise to a large community of YA readers, but I guess the cliché is true: I just don't have time for uninteresting and repetitive books, I can't fit them in my life right now. I will continue reading YAs as some of them, albeit less and less, are still the bomb. However, I will definitely limit the amount, and learn not to believe the crazy, undeserving hype created by readers with completely different book tastes to mine :/