From fantasy to poetry – half a year of great reads

There’s nothing we love more than talking about books and reading, and the Mid Sussex Reading Challenge gives us the perfect opportunity to do exactly that!

Rose from East Grinstead Library is a complete bookworm. She’s written several book reviews for the challenge blog this year and has contributed some of her favourite reads to our Fully Booked playlist. Below, she’s given us an overview of her year of reading so far – from fantasy novels like The Last Wish and Crescent City, to poetry such as Love and Misadventure, Rose has had a varied and exciting year of reading!

January: A Book adapted into TV or Film:

For My January book, I read The Last Wish by Andrez Sapkowski, which is the first in the series of fantasy novels about Geralt of Rivia, set in a cutthroat world of monsters, monster hunters known as Witchers, sorcerers, elves, dwarves and humans that are all struggling to get along and almost certainly going to go to war. Its a totally engrossing read that is very easy to get lost in as you get a real insight into Geralt’s thinking and feelings (even though he believes that due to his mutation into a Witcher, he doesn’t actually have feelings) as well as getting an insight into the wider goings on of the countries vying for power. This first book (and the second) is a collection of interconnected short stories that sets up the characters, their beliefs and the beginnings of the turmoil in the rest of the books. I’ve really enjoyed this book and if you’re a fan of the Netflix series (which I am!) then it is not one to be missed!   

February: A Collection of Short Stories: 

For my February book, I decided to go for a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Pilgrims, which is based in old country America and features cowboys, arguing lovers and strange murders happening in a fruit and vegetable market of all places! It’s a really well written collection of short stories, which should be read just for the way the author manages to get the dialogue and mannerisms of the people down to a T, as well as being a short read that you can plow through in a day if you’re feeling up to it.  

March: A Book Set in Another Country 

For the March Challenge, I chose The Giver of Stars (which is now out in a very pretty paperback edition) by Jojo Moyes as the subject matter of women fighting to keep their local library safe in a narrow-minded town appealed to me. Having been a fan of her writing since I read the Find Me series, I decided to pick this one up and wasn’t disappointed. She writes beautifully about both the country and it’s people and you really feel as if you are in the story with the women, going on their journeys up fraught mountain paths to deliver books to those that can’t read, defending the library from closure in meetings and you really get a sense of how much she loves the characters and America itself. I like how its in third person, so you jump between several of the librarians viewpoints on their journey, as well as getting a few surprises in store near the end! 

April: A Children’s Classic

For April, I revisited a book I first read last year, which is The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. I really loved this book with its gentle messages of treasuring the things you love and looking beyond beauty to people’s souls beneath. It’s a sweet, beautifully illustrated story that can easily be read in an afternoon and is a complete pleasure just to pick up and go back to. It’s very much a timeless classic that should be read by everyone, of any age and reading ability as you quickly fall in love with the Little Prince living on his planet with only a single rose for company. On a side note, there’s a film version of this book on Netflix, which I thought was a brilliant adaption with a few clever twists in that I really didn’t expect, so I would also recommend giving that a watch, either before or after you’ve read the book, whichever you prefer!

May: A Non Fiction Book

For May, I decided to use my book swap, as to be honest, I have to be really really interested in a person or place to want to read a non fiction book (I have read David Attenborough’s book as well as one about Clementine Churchill which I enjoyed) so I thought I’d read Crescent City by Sarah J Maas, as I’d been staring at it ever since I’d gotten it back in March! As with all Sarah J Maas’s novels, its a fast paced, frenetic read that draws you in and makes you quite content to sit for hours plowing through all the plot twists, character developments and (usually) cliff hanger endings. Set in a modern world where wolves, elves, fairies, humans and angels all live in close quarters and don’t necessarily all get along; however they are forced to change and become slightly more civil to one another by several murders happening in the city, with the main character losing all her friends within the opening chapter of the books (spoiler alert!) and then being forced to confront that after years of hiding her grief. It’s well worth a read for anyone just starting the fantasy genre, or ones (like me) who are already firm lovers of that genre.

June: A Book Under 200 Pages

For June, I went for a slightly different book, which was a collection of poems called Love and Misadventure by Lang Leav, which is one of those books that you just pick up, flick to a random page and read the poem, then put it down, wait a few days and find another random poem or you can read it in one sitting in about an hour. The poems are all centered around love and it isn’t just about romantic love either, it’s about platonic love and the love of adventures as well as having poems about romance. Each one is beautifully written, some of them rhyme and some of them don’t and some are more like short stories than actual poems, but all of them are wonderful and speak to you on some level, as well as staying with you long after you’ve read them. I would encourage anyone that might want to look at something different to what they usually read or someone wanting to try poetry not sure if they’ll like it or even if you’re someone that absolutely positively really doesn’t think they’ll like poetry to read this. As you might be surprised once you have.

July: A Debut Novel

Lastly for my July read, I thought I’d read Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name as I’d recently watched the film, really enjoyed it and thought I’d see how the book compared. You know those moments where you watch a film or read a book adaption of a film and decide one of them is better than the other? This was not one of those moments. The book is just as beautiful as the film, just as heartbreaking, just as infuriating (I say infuriating because you are in a constant state of suspense waiting for Elio to tell Oliver how he feels) and just as much of a tear jerker! It centres around Elio, a 17 year old student living in a villa in Italy with his parents, where each year over summer they invite a student writing a paper to their house so they can assist Elio’s father as well as having him look over their own papers and offer critique. I’ll admit that some of the references did go over my head, but it doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the book, as you quickly become immersed in Elio and Oliver’s story, where initially they are dancing around each other, trying to work out how the other feels and usually ignoring the signs and then slowly beginning to come out of their shells around each other until it all culminates at the end of the book (no spoilers for this one!). It’s a lovely read, the film is great and the sequel Find Me is equally as good, allowing to revisit your old characters in a brand new story set in the future.

Share your year of reading with us by posting in our Facebook group, tweeting us @WSCCLibraries using the hashtag #MidSussexReadingChallenge or sending us your reviews!

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The views expressed in this review are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of West Sussex Libraries.