Audiobook Recommendations

So last year I really got into audiobooks. I found that I was able to reread my favourite books without having to feel guilty about the unread books on my shelves and wow it was a life changer!

I have loved using audiobooks to read especially as I get motion sickness and cannot look at a book or my phone while travelling and it means I can still read while cooking or working!

So I thought that as it has helped me so much I would share some of my favourite audiobooks.

1 The City of Brass and The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty – Obviously this book would be on here! But no seriously guys, the audiobook is absolutely amazing! The narrator does such a great job of sucking you right into the story!

2 Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo – This is a full cast! I loved this audiobook so much!

3 Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford – Clementine reads this herself and it is so good. She is witty and sarcastic and it makes it a really fun read listening to her

4 The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon – I really enjoyed rereading the books by listening to them!

5 An Ember in the Ashes series by Sabaa Tahir – There’s a narrator for each point of view character and it makes it such a thrilling read. I’m listening to book 2 at the moment and I am enjoying it even more as an audiobook!

6 PS. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern – Listening to it made me sob even more than when I read it.

7 Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Pérez – Such a powerful book and even more so when you listen to it

8 The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer – It’s even more of a fun read when you listen to the audiobooks!

9 Caraval by Stephanie Garber – I actually enjoyed it more as an audiobook!

10 Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge – This book is such a necessary read and is even more powerful when you listen to it.

Friday Favourites – Favourite New To Me Authors in 2019

This is hosted by Something of the Book who created this tag out of a love for lists. There are different topics for us all to be able to take part and you can find the prompts here. There isn’t a specific number of favourites so it’s entirely up to you how many you share.

This week I’m going to share some authors I discovered this year or finally read an author’s book that I had been meaning to read for ages!

So here are some of my favourite new to me authors:

1 Rin Chupeco – I read The Never Tilting World and fell in love! I need to read the rest of her books now asap! You can read my review here.

2 Clementine Ford – I had been meaning to read Fight Like A Girl for ages and I finally did this year and fell in love and then I had to read her second book Boys Will be Boys and I got to meet her when she came here on a book tour. You can read my review of Fight Like a Girl here and Boys Will Be Boys here.

3 Emily Suvada – I knew I would love This Mortal Coil but I never got round to reading it until this year and of course I fell in love! You can read my review here. I need to read book two soon as the last book will be releasing soon!

4 Brigid Kemmerer – ACSDAL was a really hyped book this year so I decided to pick it up and I really loved it. You can read my review here. I decided to read some of Brigid’s other books and I really loved Call it What You Want! So I will definitely be picking up her other books too!

5 Natasha Ngan – I got GoPaF in a fairyloot box last year but I didn’t get round to reading it until recently. It was a difficult read at times but wow it was so good! I could not put it down!

So here are some of my favourite new to me authors! Which authors books did you discover this year?

Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford – ARC Review

Thank you to One World Publications for sending me ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved Fight Like a Girl so when One World Publications surprised me with by sending me an ARC of Boys Will Be Boys I was so excited to read it! And it did not disappoint!

You can read my review of Fight Like a Girl here

Rating: 4.5/5

What the book is about:

Fearless feminist Clementine Ford’s incendiary first book, Fight Like A Girl, is taking the world by storm, galvanizing women to demand and fight for real equality and not merely the illusion of it.

Now Boys Will Be Boys examines what needs to change for that equality to become a reality. It answers the question most asked of Clementine: “How do I raise my son to respect women and give them equal space in the world? How do I make sure he’s a supporter and not a perpetrator?”

Ford demolishes the age-old assumption that superiority and aggression are natural realms for boys, and demonstrates how toxic masculinity creates a disturbingly limited and potentially dangerous idea of what it is to be a man. Crucially, Boys Will Be Boys reveals how the patriarchy we live in is as harmful to boys and men as it is to women and girls, and asks what we have to do to reverse that damage. The world needs to — this book shows the way.

This book made me laugh and cry and rage and everything in between. It’s a book that explains the injustices and the toxic structural issues in society that prevent most people from truly gaining equality and justice. It’s a book that took me a long time to get through and not because I didn’t like it but because it is an incredibly difficult read because of how personal it felt to me.

I have grown up in a society that told me because I am a woman I am less and that added to the obstacles put in place because I am brown and Muslim and wear a hijab, made me rage and cry for all the things that I could barely put into words myself. Clementine wrote all the things I felt and gave voice to those feelings. The second half of the book took me months to read because I had to keep putting it down after every few pages.

However it’s a book that I think everyone NEEDS to read. From discussing rape culture to how boys are taught from a young age that, ‘that’s just boys being boys’ and how the victim is blamed and men are protected from being held to account, to how toxic masculinity not only is an issue for women but for men too.

One of things I really loved reading about was how toxic masculinity can have such a negative effect on so many boys as well as girls. There is a very rigid view of what makes a man, ‘a man’ and that means that any boy that does not fit that description is shamed for it.

I know this from experience of having to constantly stand up for my young cousin (he’s 11) because he expresses his emotions, he likes reading and art instead of sports and is a total nerd (very proud of this fact lol) but is constantly told by those who should be his role models that he needs to ‘be a real man’ and that ‘boys don’t cry’ and it makes me so mad because of how much it affects him. So reading about how it affects men was really great because it helped me to explain better just how it affects him to his parents and explain to him that there is nothing wrong with him.

This book has helped with my confidence in standing up with these issues that I am so passionate about and that to bring about real change in society we all need to learn about what obstacles have been put in place to allow only a small minority to hold all the power and then we can really make structural changes.

September Monthly Wrap Up

Well September has been a weird month reading wise, I have been in a weird slump where I want to read but I don’t want to read or I haven’t found the book I want to read. Anyways I have had a mixed reading month.

Here are the books I read this month:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow – I really loved the writing, it’s beautifully written but the story moved too slowly for me, which made me bored so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped

Rating: 3/5

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett – I was so excited for this book and it started off really well. It was fast paced and intense and quite terrifying at times but I did feel it start to drag for me in the second half. Overall I did enjoy it though.

Rating: 3/5

Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman – This book is one of my biggest disappoints of the year. How has the authors who wrote the mind blowing Illuminae Files written this?! From the boring, obvious plot to the two dimensional characters and the token diversity it’s a mess. I almost DNFd this book several times.

Rating: 1/5

It Only Happens in the Movies by Holly Bourne – I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would.

Rating: 3/5

Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa – I was a little disappointed with this sequel. I had really enjoyed Shadow of the Fox and unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this as much.

Rating: 3/5

Highfire by Eoin Colfer – Having adored the Artemis Fowl books I knew I had to read Eoin’s adult fantasy book and I was not disappointed! I have not read a book quite like this before and it took me on a wild ride!

Rating: 4.5/5

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson – Wow this book was mind blowing! I had not expected to love this book as much as I did. I was completely hooked from the first chapter and I could not put it down, reading well into the night.

Rating: 5/5

Otherlife by Jason Segal & Kirsten Miller – The last book in an amazing trilogy that had me completely hooked and kept blowing my mind. This book was as amazing as the rest of the books and I really loved how it ended.

Rating: 5/5

Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford – I absolutely loved Fight Like A Girl so I was really looking forward to reading this and it did not disappoint! I had to read it in small sections though as I would get so mad reading it. Not in a bad way, in a ‘I need to tear down the patriarchy’ way. Highly recommend reading this!

Rating: 5/5

The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt – This book sounded really interesting so when I saw it in the library I just had to borrow it. I really loved the first half, it was really interesting but I did feel it dragged in the second half.

Rating: 3/5

PS. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern – I have not read this book since I was a teen and oh my god I forgot how much I love this book and how much it made me sob.

Rating: 5/5

Furious Thing by Jenny Downham – I was sent this as part of an Instagram tour and I really enjoyed it. It made me so mad for Lexi and how she is manipulated and the emotional and psychological abuse she suffers but I love how much she grows throughout the story

Rating: 3.5/5

Unleashed by Amy McCulloch – I loved the sequel as much as Jinxed. I was completely hooked and could not put it down!

Rating: 5/5

So that’s all the books I read this month. I read some really great ones and some really disappointing ones.

Here are books I reviewed this month:

A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Romanov by Nadine Brandes

I have created a book tag for the Daevabad trilogy that you can all take part in. You can find it here

I also wrote about why I love the Daevabad trilogy and why you should all read it. You can read the blog post here.

So that’s everything this month. I am hoping to go to several book events next month so I am really looking forward to going to them!

Fight Like A Girl By Clementine Ford – Book Review

I have been wanting to read this book for a long time and then I received an ARC of her new book coming out in July so it finally gave me the push to read it. And wow did I love this book so much!

Rating: 4.5/5

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Personal and fearless – a call to arms for feminists new, old and as yet unrealised by one of our most outspoken feminist writers.

Online sensation, fearless feminist heroine and scourge of trolls and misogynists everywhere, Clementine Ford is a beacon of hope and inspiration to thousands of Australian women and girls. Her incendiary debut Fight Like A Girl is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon-to-be, and exposes just how unequal the world continues to be for women. Crucially, it is a call to arms for all women to rediscover the fury that has been suppressed by a society that still considers feminism a threat.

Fight Like A Girl will make you laugh, cry and scream. But above all it will make you demand and fight for a world in which women have real equality and not merely the illusion of it.

I borrowed the audiobook from the library and the narrator was Clementine herself. Her narration was so engaging, witty and sarcastic that I just didn’t want to pause the audiobook! She speaks about a lot of things that I related to and I was glad to hear her speak about cross sectional feminism and including everyone and not just white feminism.

Honestly, this book had me pumped and raging and I just wanted to tear down the patriarchy! It reignited my passion for speaking up about female empowerment and injustices done against women. It was empowering to listen to her and also heart breaking at times to hear the statistics and encounters of what so many women are faced with on a daily basis.

One of the benefits of reading it as an audiobook was that my husband also heard it when I played it in the evenings, and this led to lots of healthy discussions (and lots of me ranting). And I think it’s a book that can create lots of engagement and discussion. You don’t have to agree with everything she says but it’s important to listen to other perspectives too.

“We fight like girls. This is how we prevail, and this is why we’re still standing.”

This book gave voice to so many things I could not express myself, I found myself nodding along and gasping in horror and laughing my head off at her sarcasm and sass! She is actually hilarious, and I think that helped when dealing with so many heavy and intense topics. She was serious and light-hearted and balanced both really well so you don’t feel overwhelmed by everything.

One of things I do want to mention is how she spoke about having a girl gang. How having a really great group of female friends who are truly there for you and you for them is so important in battling the patriarchy. The system is set up against us and it can be exhausting constantly fighting against it but your girls can support and empower you. I adore my girl gang and I have no idea where I would be without them. They have been there for me through everything.

She also spoke about how women can never win no matter what they do in this system. We are either too feminine or not feminine enough and it’s men who decide this for us. There are so many issues so deeply ingrained into our society that most people, especially me, don’t even see that a problem exists but we need to start speaking up and making a change.

This book is unapologetic, it’s empowering and I absolutely loved it. I highly recommend you all read this and if you enjoy audiobooks do listen, it’s really great!