ByMarlida

★★★★★
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

The first book on my TBR, and the last one I added yesterday is A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS by PAUL TREMBLAY.

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.

To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

 The next book is THE INVISIBLE LIBRARY by GENEVIEVE COGMAN.

The first installment of an adventure featuring stolen books, secret agents and forbidden societies - think Doctor Who with librarian spies!

Irene must be at the top of her game or she'll be off the case - permanently...
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she's posted to an alternative London. Their mission - to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it's already been stolen. London's underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book.

Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested - the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene's new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own.

Soon, she's up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option - the nature of reality itself is at stake.

I've been looking forward to reviewing this book for a long time. It's one one the few books where only the intro itself made me think that this is a special and interesting book - before I even got started with the stories. And for each story I read, the more interesting the book became.

We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting. These are stories about those masks, and the people we are underneath them." 

- Neil Gaiman, writing from a cabin in the dark woods.  

This book contains 24 different stories, poems and "disturbances". It holds the genres fantasy, horror, science fiction, poetry, anthology and fiction. It contains horro stories, fairy tales and poems and a lot, lot more.


One of the stories I personally loved the most is "Nothing O'clock". It is a story Gaiman wrote for the fiftiteth anniversary of the Doctor Who series. It's a story about the doctor and Amy, and it was just perfect. As a Doctor Who fan, it felt like someone had taken an episode I had'nt seen before and written it like a story instead of a tv-episode. This could most definetly have been a part of the show, because it was so accurate and exciting and I recognized the characters from the show. Gaiman har actually written some episodes of the real show, so I get why he's good at it. This was just a fantastic read, and it was so nice to enjoy the world of doctor who again, even though it's not from the tv-show.


Another story I really liked is "The Sleeper and the Spindle". A few writers, including Gaiman, was asked to write a story based on a stories that had influenced them. "The Sleeper and the Spindle" was the outcome, inspired by both "Snow White and the Seven Dwarf's" and "Sleeping Beauty". This is just a really special and amazing version that I loved and would love to see as a movie. I could just picture this creepy, yet wonderful world all as I read. The story is actually also avialable as an illustrated storybook for children, as you can see on the picture above.

"Click Clack the Rattlebag" nearly scared me to death... It may be because of the timing and setting though; I was really tired and had already gone to bed, and decided to finish the story I was reading (wich was "Jerusalem", wich is really good but not scary). I did that and decided to read another, even though I was getting really sleepy. And there it was. I had to read yet another one to be able to sleep afterwards, because I was seriously scared. It's really short, and explains what all the creaks and clatter in the house that you only hear when you're alone really is.

A third story that I was really fascinated by is "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains...". It was really interesting and a world I just sunk into. The images that came up in my head while reading was amazing. I could just sit and think how beautiful and mighty the world looked like was. Also, Gaiman had about the coolest performance of the story at the Sydney Opera House (wich I did'nt know until I was done, but I can just imagine how wonderful it would have been to see that). He had a string quartet play a "moody and glorious soundtrack" while he was reading, and artist Eddie Campbell created illustrations that was shown during the performance. That, would have been so amazing to be at!


There are a lot of other really good stories and poems in this book, and I have enjoyed the whole journey from beginning to end. It's a collection worth having and worth reading. I have to be honest and say that I did'nt read "Black Dog", wich probably is the biggest reason for a lot of people to buy this book. It is a new tale, exclusively for this collection, that revisits the world of "American Gods". The only reason I did'nt read it, is because I want to read that one first.

All over, I'm really pleased and my love for short stories have been nothing but bigger after reading Trigger Warning.

REQUIEM
BY LAUREN OLIVER
PUBLISHED: 2013
AVERAGE RATING: 3.75
391 PAGES
★★☆☆☆

After reading Pandemonium, the book before Requiem, I was kind of obsessed with finding out how it ended. (Which was pretty much the only reason I continued reading this book.)

Here’s my sort of recap for the trilogy, and what I really thought about Requiem, the last book in the series.
I started reading Delirium because I’d wanted to read it for such a long time. Since I’d already bought the books, I thought; why not just read them? So I read the books + the short stories.
Annabel was exciting, and it was kind of the reason why I thought; okay, I’m going to read the rest of the books.

Delirium was okay, I didn’t get super excited about it, because, well, it was not enough action for me, not enough revealings and stuff like that. So it was pretty much boring until well, Alex “died”. What I did like was the changing of Lena, the way she went from being like the perfect citizen till a Invalid and a sympathizer.

Hana was boring, all though I had been wanting to know more about her as a character, I didn’t get to know much. In the book, the author pretty much repeated everything that happened in Delirium, just from Hana’s perspective. And Hana was my favorite character, until; well, she revealed that Hana was the reason Alex “died”.

Pandemonium was the best book, because we were introduced to a new favorite character; Julian. Who eventually became Lena’s boyfriend or something, even though she couldn’t let go of Alex. It’s also exciting because we suddenly realize that Lena’s mother is still out there, after all this time.

Raven was mandatory, because after hating on Hana, I started loving Raven instead. She was this tough Invalid who knew exactly what she wanted, and sometimes; exactly what she needed to do.
Requiem was boring. It had its peaks, but I’m thinking that this was a crappy book. I was shocked, and angry that this was the ending. That this was where Lauren Oliver ended the trilogy. Because it wasn’t really a good book, and it wasn’t really a good ending. She ended it in the middle of action, suddenly, it was just poof, finished, like it was laughing in my face. So I started looking for an epilogue, but there was none.

Requiem became some kind of Twilight thingy, where Lena is so in love with Julian, but she still loves Alex, and they’re both in love with her, so she kind of wants to be with them both and it’s just sad and weird. I also thought that there would be some kind of clearing; like we got to know what happened to Portland and the rest of America. Did the resistance die? Or did they manage to make a new America? There were so many unanswered questions I was actually angry…

As I've mentioned earlier I have been trying to read the Percy Jackson series at the age of 20 years old. And all though they're written for kids, I have to say that I have yet to be disappointed by these books. 

THE SEA OF MONSTERS (PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS)
BY RICK RIORDAN
PUBLISHED: 2006
AVERAGE RATING: 4.22
279 PAGES
★★★☆☆

The Heroic Son of Poseidon, Percy Jackson goes out to retrieve the Golden Fleece against Chiron's wishes, and along with him; his new friend Tyson and Annabeth. On their journey they fight against monsters, an old enemy and meet new and terrifying creatures from all over the world.

I read this book in about 3 or 4 days, and it's as I said in my review about "The Lightning Thief" easy-read books with lots of action. All though they're very childish written, they're funny and kind of feel-good books that makes you believe in a world of the old greek Gods and Demi-Gods fighting for our survival.

What I love about this book is that we get to understand more about Percy's faith, but we also get to meet a new member of his family. There's a big plot-twist at the start of the book, and the twist just grows throughout the book. We don't get to see or meet many Gods in this book, but Hermes, the messenger - and father of Luke, gives Percy help on his way. And even though Percy is angry with his father for not taking contact - he understands that he's watching over him - giving him powers and gifts that shows his affection for his son.

I guess that as long as you remember that these are children's books when you read them - they're incredibly funny to read and you just fall in love with the people you read about!

THE LIGHTNING THIEF (#1 PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS)
BY RICK RIORDAN
PUBLISHED: 2005
AVERAGE RATING: 4.20
377 PAGES
★★★☆☆

Percy Jackson is about to kicked out of boarding school, again. Lately mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus is walking straight out of the pages of Percy’s Greek mythology textbook and into his life, and the worst thing is that some of them are angry with him. Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus’ stolen property and bring it to Mount Olympus. On the way he has to come to terms with his father who abandoned him, solve the riddle of the Oracle, and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

I bought these books after wanting to read them as a kid, and actually bought them from Ida Elise. I started reading, and my first impression is that it’s a lot like Harry Potter in the way it’s written - because it’s a children’s book. It’s easy to read, and it’s exciting. Here you’ll meet a heroic boy, his friends Grover and Annabeth who joins him on his journey to find Zeus’ lightning bolt.

What I love about these books is the Greek mythology, where we find centaurs, minotaurs, furies, and creatures like Graeae (three old women with one tooth and one eye among them), Chiron (Known for training Hercules), Cerberus (the three-headed giant hound guarding the gates of the Underworld), Wood nymphs(beautiful minor goddess women who lives in the forest), Gorgons (Like Medusa), Charon (a ferryman at the river Styx) and many many more.

The books have lots of action for children, and what I love about these books is that Riordan has given life to the old Greek mythology which has always interested me. Once again we meet a trio of brave children, featuring dark forces and creatures from all parts of the world, magic and heroes. This is the kind of book you read and hope that you'll one day get to be a part of this magnificent adventure yourself.

I think that it may suit children and teens from the age of 8-16, it's easy read books with meaningful morals. I think that they're fun to read, sometimes it's nice to just sit down and read something that isn't that complicated.