hannahsliteraryhaven

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

cats and libraries ۫ ꣑ৎ

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

"I like that library books have secret lives. All those hands that have held them. All those eyes that have read them."

―Same Sun Here by Neela Vaswani

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔠𝔞𝔫 𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔢 𝔞 𝔪𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔰 📚

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

I'm currently reading The Huntress by Kate Quinn and it's been an unexpectedly great read so far! I highly recommend for those who enjoy WW2 based books and/or historical fiction that also empowers women!

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

by Gavin de Becker ★★★★★

4.5*

A really insightful and fascinating book; I've highlighted so much! I feel like everyone, especially women who have a tendency to date toxic men, should read this book. I hope fewer and fewer women fall for toxic men's charms in future.

I liked how de Becker focuses in on misplaced fear and anxieties that we all have. He wrote in a clear way that made a lot of sense to me and I hope my brain has absorbed most of this book, to help me focus on how much safety I already have, and to be even more mindful about how crimes are portrayed in the media (they unnecessarily produce fear).

I loved when he spoke of his work where he protects his clients from stalkers and potential murderers. I was hooked every time he introduced a new real life scenario. One of them actually made my heart pound with shock at what happened, it was very well written.

The author added a little snippet at the end about guns in America which I think US readers may find insightful. As a Brit, I couldn't imagine having an unlocked and loaded gun in the house - it baffles me.

I'm glad I read this book and I'm considering buying it again as a physical copy to refer back to once in a while...

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

The Bullet Swallower

by Elizabeth Gonzalez James ★★★★★

Wow, this was an unexpected 5 star read, and to learn that it is based on the true story of the author's grandfather just made it even better!

James' writing is superb, so beautiful and it allowed me to envisage things so well. The story kept on giving and kept my attention throughout, like a new loveable character may be introduced or suddenly they're heading to a lake that's said to be haunted! It was just intriguing throughout.

James is an excellent writer and I look forward to checking out her other works!

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

The Dark Creator

by Lauren Chambers ★★★★★

4.5*

This is book 3 of the Dark Descendants series, however, they can all be read as stand alone books so don't let the fact it's part of a series deter you from checking out this book if the summary attracts your attention!

This was another exciting read by Chambers, with good pacing and another suspenseful ending that makes you read faster and faster as everything begins to unravel. Chambers is very good at showing you things, not telling you, which I appreciate; chapter 20 was particularly enjoyable and gripping!

I liked how Chambers included his name in the story and played on the fact that people often mistake him for a woman. I also got to see more of his psychology knowledge in this book which I liked, as a psych grad!

The characters are interesting and complex, but not necessarily likeable and their actions may surprise you. Gene is an egotistical, borderline sociopathic character that is sent to a therapist after a suicide attempt - he's kind of lost with no sense of purpose in life.

This is the second book written by Chambers that I've read and I've noticed that sometimes the finer details can get murky, but you can kind of figure it out as you go along and still enjoy the main premise of the story.

I've discovered that I don't seem to read summaries all too often, I just go into reading a book blind. When I was almost halfway through this read, I came across the summary and it spoiled the plot twist! So I feel like the summary gives a bit too much away to be honest.

Overall though, this was a well written and enjoyable read. Chambers has grabbed my attention and has made me want to read more of the dark descendants series!

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

by Becky Chambers

★★★★☆

4.25*

This was a pleasantly beautiful read, with the occasional funny moments too. It's definitely cozy punk as others have said; it's a pretty laid back story that is somewhat philosophical and hopeful. I found a lot of what Mosscap said was healing in a way. Mosscap's character really came alive in my mind's eye and reminded me a bit of The Iron Giant. 🥰 I was a little surprised at the end - it seemed to cut off so suddenly (especially when my kindle said I was 96% through), but there is a second book that I'll definitely check out. I wasn't expecting to enjoy as much as I did!

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

oops! it seems i tripped and dropped several million free books, papers, and other resources

https://annas-archive.org

https://sci-hub.se

https://z-lib.is

https://libgen.is

https://libgen.rs

https://www.pdfdrive.com

https://library.memoryoftheworld.org

https://monoskop.org/Monoskop

https://libcom.org

https://libretexts.org

http://classics.mit.edu

https://librivox.org

https://standardebooks.org

https://www.gutenberg.org

https://core.ac.uk

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

My 2024 Year in Review

꒰ ͜͡➸ Goals

☑ read 40 books (43/40)

☐ complete a storygraph reading challenge (0/1)

☑ read at least 3 books from the 1001 list (5/3) 📚

✏️= Advanced Reader Copy

꒰ ͜͡➸ Monthly

➳ January

⋆ Bury my heart at wounded knee | 4

⋆ The league of lady poisoners | 5

⋆ The Yellow Wallpaper (short story) | 3

➳ February

⋆ A mother's reckoning | 4

⋆ Overcoming low self esteem | 4

⋆ Mermaids: the myths, legends and lore | 3

⋆ Miracle in the Andes | 5

⋆ The book that wouldn't burn | 4.75

⋆ Overdue | 5

⋆ The lady maid's bell (short story) | 2

➳ March

⋆ Killers of the flower moon | 5

⋆ Greenwood | 4

⋆ The woman in me | -

⋆ Burden | 4.5

⋆ Incel | 3.5

⋆ What moves the dead | 4.5

⋆ Mars is Heaven (short story) | 5

➳ April

⋆ Brother | 3

⋆ The Dark Violinist | 4 ✏️

⋆ The Picture of Dorian Gray | 4.25 📚

⋆ A Stolen Life | -

➳ May

⋆ To Kill a Mockingbird | 5

⋆ The Mangler (short story) | 4

⋆ Annie John | 4 📚

⋆ Snow Flower & The Secret Fan | 4

➳ June

⋆ The Catcher in the Rye | 3 📚

⋆ The Edge of the Woods | 4

⋆ Murder at the Mayfair Hotel | 5

➳ July

⋆ The Butterfly Garden | 4.5

➳ August

⋆ The Book That Broke The World | 5

⋆ The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle | 4 📚

➳ September

The Blind Owl | 3.5 📚

The Only Good Indian | 2.5

Free Will Explained | 3

The Gift of Fear | 4.5

The Bullet Swallower | 5

➳ October

The Dark Creator | 4.5 ✏️

The Bell Jar |

➳ November

➳ December

꒰ ͜͡➸ End of year stats

no. of books total:

no. of DNF:

2024 fave:

2024 hate:

𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪𓆩*𓆪

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

by Haruki Murakami

★★★★☆

This a weird book... to put it lightly. If someone asked me what this book was about, I honestly wouldn't know where I'd start.

Although the book is weird, and possibly unnecessarily long in places (even the characters themselves said a few times their story is a long one), it managed to capture my attention throughout all 600 pages. This is because there's an air of mystery and (my own, mostly) confusion, with the odd tidbit of information here and there that *seemed* to bring the puzzle together, that keeps you reading in the hopes of understanding what the hell is happening. I don't tend to like a book that goes into too much detail about things but I found I was ready and eager for any and all information.

I think Murakami is definitely a gifted writer. Some scenes came alive so vividly in my mind, other scenes almost set you on edge and the characters all come alive and have their own weird quirks. The accounts from the lieutenant were gut wrenching and near the end of the book, the talk of Boris and how dangrous of a man he is, made me feel that was definitely true - I could feel the tension in the characters. But in relation to Lt. Mamiya's stories, I have a hard time figuring out how some of his story related to the main plot, especially his last account about Boris. His previous stories seemed to unknowningly guide Okado to what he needed to do, as well as drew some links between what he was experiencing and Mamiya's experiences, but his last accounts seemed to be not that useful. Same for May's letters, they seemed sort of irrelevant but at the same time, she was an interesting character that you kind of wanted to know what was happening for her.

Some have said this book isn't Murakami's best work but I'm surprisingly not put off and will continue to check out more of his books.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57012688-the-wind-up-bird-chronicle

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

Murder at the Mayfair Hotel

by C.J. Archer

★★★★★

I'll admit, this is, I believe, my first ever cosy mystery book! I also admit that I only read this book because it had a purple cover and that was part of a story graph challenge. Honestly, I did not expect it to be a 5 star read at all, so I'm pleasantly surprised and really glad I stumbled across this book!

I generally avoid detective style books (if I see D.C or D.I on the back of a book, it goes back on the shelf immediately), probably because they take themselves too seriously, the storylines are too samey and they just seem boring to me - I'd much rather read a book about true crime than read about a fictional detective solving a fictional (and probably outlandish) murder! That's why I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.

Maybe because I took this story at face value and didn't go into it with a critical eye, that is why I don't really follow the criticisms shared in other reviews. One mentioned that Cleo is Cambridge educated, yet acts naïve and jumps to conclusions, but this is mentioned only a couple of times. Just because someone is well-educated, doesn't mean they can't make mistakes or be naïve to things. I didn't see Cleo as naïve, only passionate about figuring out the mystery.

I loved the tension and banter between Cleo and Harry and I hope it expands in later books. I was hoping something would happen at the end with them, but even though that didn't happen, it was still a satisfying ending that leads into the next book. All the characters felt so real and alive; they all had their own personalities and I could imagine how they behaved so easily. Archer gives little snippets of information which allows your mind to wander and imagine - nothing's bogged down by too much description which I'm all for!

The book was so easy to read, everything flowed so well into another. Although the book is 350+ pages, it didn't feel that way at all. Something was always happening and there was never a lull in the story where I felt I was losing interest. It felt almost fast paced, yet because of the length, it could probably still be deemed medium paced.

I can't think of any moment where I thought, 'that's cringe/weird/doesn't sound right'. It was just a pleasant read from start to finish. No writing/spelling errors either. I can't think of a negative part of the book which is why I had to give it 5 stars!

This book is free on Amazon so there's no excuse not to check it out. :)

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

by Lisa See

★★★★☆

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

I feel as though this is a hard book to review, as the story felt very linear and flat. There wasn't really anything major happening and even when one sort of major thing happened, it still didn't feel hugely problematic, especially as the characters just continued with their lives after that incident. But this isn't necessarily a negative comment; I still read the entire book, so it kept my interest throughout. And admittedly, how exciting can a tale be when women spent the majority of their lives in one room and were rarely permitted to leave the house…

You start the book with a prologue from the protagonist Lily, who is now 80 years old and is looking back over her life (and, from what I understood, also writing an autobiography). What follows is the linear story of her life, but most importantly, it focuses on her laotong, Snow Flower; an arrangement in Chinese culture that brings two girls together to form a life long bond.

Snow Flower is often thinking of flying and birds, metaphorically indicating her wish for more and to escape the confines of what is expected of her, whereas Lily is much more grounded to tradition. As you can guess, this causes a bit of contention between them when Lily discovers Snow Flower is being mistreated by her husband. Instead of being a true friend and support, she simply pushes for Snow Flower to keep producing sons, not knowing what else to say - Lily only has her limited life experience and knowledge to fall back on.

Just one misconstrued message by Lily from Snow Flower was enough for her to cut off all contact with Snow Flower for the majority of the remainder of their lives. It's only in hindsight, in her old age, that Lily realises she wasn't a good friend to Snow Flower and that she shouldn't have been so forthright with Snow Flower about keeping to tradition and being a good wife.

What the book does well is share the customs that were observed in the 1800s, most notably, foot binding. See goes into pretty graphic detail of the pain and horror of foot binding, and shares the fact that 1 in 4 girls died from sepsis from this practice, which I was unaware of. As a historical fiction book, it is truly fascinating to learn about the Chinese customs of the 1800s, most of which were disadvantageous to women of course. Women were seen more as a burden, only good for producing sons, and were often treated terribly.

It is quite a poignant tale, that may cause some people to reflect on themselves, their friendships and traditions, and how those traditions/beliefs/customs, in some ways, tie them down. All in all, I don't regret reading this book.

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

Brother

by Ania Ahlborn

★★★☆☆

This was a neutral read for me. It was predictable, and as another reviewer said, very tame. Some plot points didn't really make much sense to me or weren't expanded further on to enough of a degree for it to make sense. Some events felt like they were thrown in just for effect, like the author suddenly realised that not much was happening. Yet, I felt the quality of writing was actually quite good; as I could vividly imagine the movements of the characters and the scenes well. After hearing about the plot of this book on booktok though, I was expecting a lot more than it delivered.

How Brother was described to me, through a TikTok video I came across sharing horror reads, was that it tells the story through the eyes of Michael who was adopted/kidnapped into a family of murderers, who kills girls to eat them. Pretty wild concept, right?

Except, not a lot happens for the first half of the book. In fact, it is almost half way through that they actually kidnap and murder a woman. Even then, although it is mentioned, there was no real emphasis on the fact the family eat the victims. Also, Michael and Rebel talk frequently about having to bring home strawberry blonde girls for momma but not once do I remember momma explicitly requesting that they need to get another girl, say because they're running low on food. In fact, the mum and dad are very flat characters. I was expecting them to be very fleshed out brutal characters that murdered for the sadistic pleasure of it and ate the meat as a bonus, but they say and do very little. It is Rebel/Ray (I wish it was just Ray), Michael's brother that is the strongest character.

I assumed that the family were poor and that killing people was their way of simply feeding themselves, yet Reb drives a car (how does he pay for fuel?), the dad has a car and they live by woods and own guns, so they could hunt animals instead. You might be thinking, 'well they're just sadistic people and they kill for fun', but Reb seems to be the most unhinged. Like I said, momma never explicitly asks for them to kill for food, so I felt like this wasn't developed enough to where I could pinpoint their actual reason for killing women.

I still don't know the reasoning behind why -SPOILER- and what exactly that added to the story. It's stated by Michael that momma did it to protect him but that doesn't make any sense. Protect him from what exactly? Again, this felt like it was thrown in for effect, yet most of the characters are so flat that you'll have a hard time feeling sad for anyone that dies.

There was some allusion to momma just disliking having daughters, and also that she kills girls who look similar to her or her other daughter, because she wants to kill the anger inside of being abused as a child? This side of the story just didn't feel solidly developed and the mum was such a neutral character that I didn't care.

Michael is seen as the weakling of the family, very shy and pushed around by Rebel. He does what he's told because that all he's known, but also because he has a slight fear about what the family could do to him if he disobeys - fair enough. Except, Michael does something quite uncharacteristic when he was younger that turns out to be the catalyst to Rebel's final plan for Michael.

That leads me to the end of the book. As Reb's plan unfolds, Michael leaves the house to follow clues. The parents who are clearly in on Reb's plan, and would expect Michael to return in anger, go to bed? Surely, if they know that -SPOILER-, but they go to bed? It would have been a more satisfying ending if Michael actually confronted his parents; it would've given the parents a chance to show a little more of their thoughts on the whole thing.

Maybe I was wrong for believing a TikTok video that outlined the general plot of this book and expected too much, but reading other reviews tells me I'm not alone in my perception of this book. I'm surprised at those calling this a rollercoaster of a book, when to me, it felt like a kid friendly flat ride with the odd twisted surprise. It feels like the only people thinking this book is wild are those who mainly read romance and are just dipping their toe into the realm of "horror".

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

The Wonderful O

by James Thurber

★★★★☆

What a wonderful little story all about the letter O!

An ominous character named Black arrives on an island called Ooroo (soon to be changed to R). He shares with a sailor that his mother got stuck in a porthole and they couldn't pull her in, so they had to push her out. The trauma of this was so unbearable that Black decides to be rid of the letter O - I'm assuming this is because a porthole is a circular shape, but this part was a little fuzzy and maybe could've been expanded on.

However, Thurber writes his stories with a rhyme and rhythm throughout, never knowing when you're going to inadvertently read a rhyming sentence or two. I came across words I'd never heard before. I loved how even animals without an O in their name, were still linked to the Latin categorical name, like spiders are arthropods!

I just had to add my favourite quotes from this book; there simply wasn't enough available on Goodreads to capture the fun silliness and wordplay this story is full of.

It's a fun little story that teaches children about words and nouns and plurals. It's safe to say that I won't be able to not notice the amount of words with O's in them after reading this.

I know that I'm not alone in wondering why two of Thurber's children's stories (The 13 Clocks) were on the 1'001 books to read before you die list', but I get it now. It's an enjoyable and quick read that shows the fun you can have with words. 🤗

[hannahsliteraryhaven]

Burden

by Matt Duchossoy

★★★★★ - 4.5*

This book reads like a fever dream and I pulled this face a bunch of times as I read:

But in a good way! Maybe I'm not right in the head but I devour gore, horror and generally fucked up shit and this mini book delivered. The author shared his inspiration at the end and I definitely got the Silent Hill and The Mist vibes as I was reading.

It was my first experience with Bizarro fiction, and it certainly was bizarre, but I'm already looking forward to reading another book from Matt Clarke!