Books

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried. When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.

As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

Rating:

This review may caontain spoilers. I will also say a trigger warning for abuse, child abuse, violence, mental health. Now here we go:

Claudia and Monday have been best friends since forever, but now Monday’s not back at school and Claudia knows there is something wrong but she just can’t get enough evidence, and no one seems to believe her.

This part was what I found really hard to accept. I mean, Monday and Claudia spend most of their time at Claudia’s house. And if Monday had come to my house every day and spent lots of sleepover nights with my child, I would most certainly listen if my daughter said her best friend was missing and try to do something!

One thing was that it was very confusing because the chapters are named like “The Before”, “The After”, “X Years Before The Before”, so it doesn’t go in a straigth line and it isn’t until the very end when you realise that Claudia is stuck in a fantasy of not knowing yet what has happened to Monday (when she actually does) that the titles make sense, but it isn’t enough to make you want to go back and figure out what breadcrumbs were left there for you to guess this is what was happening and some of the story doesn’t match at all.

It is a very emotional read and very scary to think this may be possible and may happen, so it is a sad thing.

Moon recommends

Well, it seems I have been reading out of my comfort zone since I don’t have much to recommend here except Monday’s Not Coming and Where I Live. I aslo want to thank the publisher’s for a copy of this book!

One thing I have noticed is, I am not a big fan of contemporary unless it is dealing with stuff like this book does.

Lady Mechanika Vol 1 by Joe Benitez

Discover a beautifully illustrated steampunk world of airships, monsters, and one courageous but haunted heroine…

This volume collects the entire first Lady Mechanika mini-series The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse, including its prequel chapter The Demon of Satan’s Alley, plus a complete cover art gallery.

Rating:

Steampunk graphic novel with a kick ass heroine at the front and gorgeous, yes please!

This first volume introduces you to Lady Mechanika as she searches to find who made her what she is and why. We also meet the rest of the cast and even a Romani circus that make things interesting.

The art is lovely and the extra covers are a delight to see. The story telling is fast paced and it is action packed so it was a very enjoyable read and difficult to put down. The details of all the steampunk victorian mesh give me a happy heart and it is a really lovely display of fashion and engineering.

So I definitely recommend this graphic novel, and I am on my way to buying the next one.

Jurassic Park & The Lost World by Michael Crichton

The eccentric millionaire John Hammond has finally figured out a way to recover dinosaur DNA from mosquitos capsuled in amber. With the world leading scientists at his side, and endless resources to spend, he has also managed to clone this DNA, and breed actual Jurassic creatures. To do a kind of test run of the theme park where he intends to show off his creations, John invites a small group of lawyers, insurance people, paleontologists and mathematicians to inspect the park. He also invites his own grandchildren. Everything is wonderous and epic, until a thunderstorm strikes, a biased computer expert hacks the system, and the dinosaurs suddenly runs loose …

Six years later some of the old crew, and also a few new professors and kids, sets out for an expedition to Isla Sorna, an island closely located to Isla Nublar, where the now destroyed and empty Jurassic Park once resided. Reports has started to come in from small villages along the Costa Rican coast, where strange-looking lizards are biting people and killing infants. But is it possible that dinosaurs still, or rather again, walks the earth?

Rating 🐖🐖🐖

The novels about Jurassic Park were first published in the early 1990’s. By now, a good 30 years and five movies later, we all know the story. However, I remembered really appreciating reading Jurassic Park the first time around, and decided to do a reread of it (and the sequel) before watching Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. All things considered, I’m glad that I did.

Jurassic Park turns out to mostly be what I expected; it’s an epic adventure story, with somewhat stereotypical characters, a lot of philosophical reasoning around life, extinction and humans manipulation of the planet, and never sleeping carnivores. A lot of background information around the scientifical processes are given, and sometimes the characters lines feels more like Michael Crichton sneaking in (what he think is) interesting theories more than anything that actually makes sense for the story. Jurassic Park balances on the thin line between fiction and non-fiction, where the non-fiction parts are mostly made up. It makes the book unique, but it also makes you yawn and scroll through endless reasonings about average growth in herbivore populations. When it gets interesting though, it feels nice that all of these thought gets this much space, and are not rushed through. In some way it’s both the novels strength and weakness to get lost in philosophic, mathematic and scientific reasoning. And before you grow too tired of it, there’s always a hungry T-rex to wake you up.

The Lost World on the other hand, is more of a bleak shadow of it’s precursor than anything else. While the scientific theories are still there, and now to the edge of being overwhelming, the adventureness is almost all gone. By now, we know what happens when you meet a raptor in the woods. Throwing in another pair of kids and changing the location to another island doesn’t do the trick. I would recommend you to read the first book, but leave the second to be. Cause what Crichton does best, is after all epic scenes about epic giants. The philosophy and math are better left for someone else to dig into.

Dr. Bea approves of Jurassic Park, but not so much of its sequel.

If you want more dinosaurs and a bit more dystopian adventures, I strongly recommend The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson, that is said to be “Jurassic Park meets The Hunger Games”, and that I after just a few chapters already love. (Review to come later on, so keep your eyes open and on this blog.)

Yes, I got some intrigued looks from my boyfriend when I came back into the room holding the knife, but in all fairness it was him that gifted one to me. (He was wondering how I’d use it a prop, not a concerned look, he’s used to my prop searches). Also, there are some Easter eggs in this picture if you’ve read the book…

White Rabbit, Red Wolf by Tom Pollock

Peter Blankman is afraid of everything and must confront unimaginable terror when his mother is attacked. Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a maths prodigy. He also suffers from severe panic attacks. Afraid of everything, he finds solace in the orderly and logical world of mathematics and in the love of his family: his scientist mum and his tough twin sister Bel, as well as Ingrid, his only friend. However, when his mother is found stabbed before an award ceremony and his sister is nowhere to be found, Pete is dragged into a world of espionage and violence where state and family secrets intertwine. Armed only with his extraordinary analytical skills, Peter may just discover that his biggest weakness is his greatest strength.

Rating:

I absolutely loved this book. I struggled to put it down to eat, to work, to sleep. I wanted to keep reading more and more.

It was full of maths and interesting problems and my mind was having a party as Peter counted numbers in his head, but not just 1, 2, 3… but square roots of each number, or maybe fibonacci series, or anything else of the kind. I loved every piece of numerical refernece that was there, the Cesar coding was such a fun thing to see there and the codes behind the pages, the greyed out number, it was like having a book written just for my pleasure.

The loop and loop and lie over lie, and loop and lie, was amazing and I absolutely loved it all, the plot twists kept coming and I loved each one and they left me with questions but more of the kind that says “hey, I want to know more, I need more, give me more books” rather than “what the heck happened” or “why?”. Marvelous indeed, and this is quickly rushing to be my book fo the year (unless the Girls find a way to surprise me again and wreck my heart like they did last year with After The Fire).

It is also a very difficult book to review without spoiling something because layers and loops and maths and I just can’t say how good this was. Read, go, read…

Moon recommends

Go read White Rabbit, Red Wolf. Then maybe go read After The Fire. And if you like maths why not read Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension?