August Wrap-Up | Raquel

The first book I read this month was BZRK Apocalypse by Michael Grant. I started this series a little while ago and I just hadn't read the last book. I think I had exams or something that came up that cause me to put it off and then forget about it. I was looking for some summer books to read and then I remembered I never actually read this one. This story was actually really good! I really love Michael Grant books, they are definitely some of my favourite! This particular story is a science fiction type novel. It brings up the idea of nanobots and biots which essentially are the same thing but have a more biological component. There are two groups who are battling each other. One wants to take over the world and the other wants to save it. Things get a lot more complicated, people die, people go mad. Id say this story is pretty far from a happy ending, but it sure does end very uniquely. Throughout the series more gets revealed about each of these groups and their origins. This story has a sense of mystery as a lot of things surrounding these groups are anonymous. I would rate this book 3.8/5 stars.

The second book I read this month was Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley. I read this book mostly on the recommendation of Faith. This book I can say for certain was nothing like what I thought it would be. I had this story pictured in my head and it was completely different. I actually really liked the idea of the story. The whole idea is really fascinating and I am kind of curious how this author came up with this story. I will say that I think that she could have done more with the story. I think that this idea had a really great potential to be some sort of intricate story, but instead she wrote it a lot more simply. I wouldn't say the story is bad at all, just that it could have been a really awesome story. I liked how she introduced this world into the story though, sometimes when you read a book the way that this new world or whatever enters in is really unnatural. It just seems to quick or too unrealistic. In Magonia though it had a full back story and its not necessarily that the world was suddenly be introduced its almost like this new world was just always there. I would rate this book 4/5 stars.

Next I read Messenger of Fear by: Michael Grant. I have had a real obsession with his books lately... There is just something about them that I love. I don't know if it is his brilliant stories or his amazing writing style but all I can say is Michael's books are truly phenomenal. They also usually tend to be Science Fiction novels which I am really into. This story in particular was very unique. It is one of those books that intentionally keeps you in the dark about pretty much everything until about the end. Even towards the end we still only have a glimpse of what really is going on,but we just now have some back story. It is this withholding  of information that really hooks me into this book. I am an extremely curious person and this book just takes advantage of this curiosity. I couldn't even think of putting this book down because I wanted to know what was going on that bad. The way the story is written at first it is really hard to tell what is reality. As it goes on you kind of learn that things aren't as simple as real/not real. Also some of the situations that the Messenger shows her really make you think. It kind of made me see things and think about them in a different way. I always love when a book can make you do that because then it shows that the book really did affect you. Sometimes books aren't just stories you read to pass the time. They too can help shape your view of things, of life, of pretty much everything. Books and stories can give you a new understanding of the different ways of life and all the cruelty that really is out there. I feel that this series would be one of those types of books even being a science fiction novel. I would highly suggest people read this book! I rate this book 4.3/5 stars.

This last book I have read before and it is And the Mountains Echoed by: Khaled Hosseini. What happened was is that last year I read this book and I wrote a review for it. (It was a pretty awesome review if you ask me) However it got corrupted and 75% of what I wrote was gone. I was pretty thrown off by what happened and I just had no drive to re-write it again. I decided that this summer I would read this book again as my friend was reading to for the first time. I will be re-writing a review for this book finally.. It will probably contain pieces from my old review in it so if there are some parts that sound odd like it was written from a version of me from a year ago that's well because it was. I am not going to rate the book on here I just thought I'd mention that this review finally will be coming..
(I wrote notes throughout the book to even make sure that I had all my thoughts and ideas in order- I usually am not this organized with this stuff)




Note: I didn't read a lot of books this month as things got a tad busy unfortunately. I was going to mix my wrap-ups but I haven't really posted much so I decided against that. Instead I am just going to list the next three books I plan on reading in a post which you can view here. Whether they will make it all into my next wrap-up I can't promise, though they all should... but knowing me I never know. (A new book could come out and I could read that one first..)