The Brown Review

Letters to the Lost Author: Brigid Kemmerer Rating: 5. 100. 1000. Infinity. I can’t rate this. I can only ask you, request you, implore you to read it. Recommend: If I can reach even one person and convince them to read this – this mind-blowing, addictive, insanely compelling gem of a book – then, I will go to my grave knowing that I did at least one good thing in this life. Highly, highly recommended. After finishing Letters to the Lost, I was overcome by an overwhelming, consuming need to write. I needed an outlet, somewhere I could express the intensely powerful emotions the book had caused in me, someone to express my thoughts to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Declan, or The Dark in my life to whom I can talk to; for now, this blog is my outlet. The Dark and The Cemetery Girl ;) This is a novel about a girl who has lost her mother, and a boy who has lost his sister. Juliet leaves letters on her mother’s grave and one day Declan stumbles across one – ...

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Author: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows Rating: 5/5 Recommend: This novel is written in letters. Letters. Do I need to say more? Your first thought was about the title wasn’t it? Well, in all honesty mine was too. There's a hilarious story about that early on in the book! The Guernsey is among those very few, very rare novels which can proudly boast a movie that more than lives up to the novel’s fame – I loved it. I feel pure joy to review this. It is the year 1946. The world is recovering from the after-effects of the second World War, and London is no different… welcome to London in the 1940’s where the air is gray with smoke, and piles of rubble still decorate the roads to remind the people of the devastating years past. This is the home of Juliet Ashton, a beautiful young author who has recently achieved success from her debut novel. Dawsey Adams! One day Juliet receives a letter from a you...

Second book in the Villains series. Sequel to Vicious . Author: Victoria Elizabeth Schwab Rating: 4.5/5 Recommend: A second book about Victor and Eli – could it possibly be wrong? Vengeful provides some much needed answers which we longed for in Vicious ; from the history of Eli, to a world rapidly getting to know about the existence of EO’s it provides all the details you’ve been craving and more. I might as well admit it: nothing can live up to the perfection that is Vicious . Vengeful, however was a valiant effort by V. E. Schwab. It’s darker than its predecessor, and there were more than a few parts where the book sent literal shivers down my spine. I write this on a gray, drizzly afternoon… I still can’t get the effects of reading Vengeful out of my mind. After the events of Vicious , many things in the Villains world begin changing. Brought back from the dead by Sydney, Victor is alive but with his power greatly flawed. There is a new government fac...

Vicious First book in the Villains series. Predecessor to Vengeful. Author: Victoria E. Schwab Rating: 4.8/5 Recommend: It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Marvel or DC fan or don’t even like superheroes in general. This book isn’t about heroes – it’s about super-powerful, emotionally damaged, kind of psychotic villains. SO READ IT. :) I had no idea that this book existed before a friend posted on social media that she was reading Vicious – she was talking about how the plot revolved around two college kids who turned into best friends and then into super-people and then turned into arch nemeses – a whole other level of messed up. So, of course I had to go buy Vicious. I am so glad I did. Vicious is all the fantastic mutant powers you’ve ever wanted from an X-Men movie, combined with two semi-villains and one hell of a plotline. Here is what I loved about the book: first of all, the teaming up of Victor (our anti-hero), Sydney (child who raises dead) and M...

  Author: Krystal Sutherland Rating: 4.1/5 Recommend: An easy to read novel perfect for someone looking for a different, suspenseful take on a classic high-school love story. Our Chemical Hearts is a very strange book. The plot is well thought out and you’ll be hooked to the story till the very end. While reading the initial few chapters of this book, my first thought was this: Grace and Henry strongly remind me of Clay and Hannah in Thirteen Reasons Why. But, how could that be possible? Hannah was dead and Grace is very much alive… unless Henry is somehow talking to a ghost. By the end of the book, believe me I was stunned at how accurate my premonition was. Grace was actually a ghost; one whose heart still beat, but a part of whom had died during the accident. Our Chemical Hearts revolves around the story of Grace and Henry. Unlike other books, Henry did not fall for Grace at first sight. In her man clothes, dirty hair, and sallow skin, she looked more ...

The Hate U Give Author: Angie Thomas Rating: 4/5 Recommend: This is the first book I have read in the black-protest-racism genre. It deserves a place on every teacher’s classroom bookshelf, right beside the John Green’s and Rainbow Rowell’s. The Hate U Give portrays messages which need to be heard by the upcoming generations: I strongly recommend it for youth.   By the age of sixteen Starr Carter had already seen two of her best friends die. She was with them when it happened, held them as they gave out their last breaths. And why did they die you ask? Because, these two defenseless, unarmed, innocent children just happened to be black. And it’s okay to kill people for their color, right? WRONG. The Hate U Give revolves around this very thing – how it is wrong to kill someone just because you assumed things for their skin color, that it doesn’t make it any different or in any way right if the person you hurt has done nothing wrong. Starr Carter was te...

Author : Madeline Miller  Rating: 4.5/5  Recommend : I would recommend all of Madeline Miller’s mesmerizing retelling of heroes and gods, in a heartbeat. Circe is no different – it is a novel which you will read time and time again, will take strength in and seek lessons from, and will remain in your memory for generations more to come.  Circe is the tale of a woman. A woman, who from the minute she was born, was cast aside by both mother and father, deemed unworthy, plain and insignificant. Circe was a goddess, born from the blood of the sun titan himself – but, goddess or no are not all us women like her? Considered by society only for our beauty, little in much else, who men see fit to do as they will, treat as they will, just another object for them to take as they will… Circe is every woman in the world who has had to face the ugliness of men and society and fight them all alone.  Circe, as mortals imagine her As with The Song O...

Book 1 of The Dark Artifices series  Author: Cassandra Clare  Rating: 4/5  Recommend: Shadowhunters both new and old will love this. Among all the different series’ in Cassandra Clare’s fantastic realm, Lady Midnight would come second only to The Infernal Devices novels. It is far better than The Mortal Instruments series.  Imagine flames. Scorching, yellow flames all around you, towering over your height. Imagine the people you have loved all your life staring at you with lifeless eyes as they kill countless innocents around them. Imagine being 12 years old and surrounded in the middle of this chaos, your arms spread wide, protecting your younger siblings, the youngest just 2 years old. This is a memory from the life of Julian Blackthorn: the boy who killed his father to protect his family, a child who then singlehandedly raised four of his younger siblings when he was barely 12 years old himself.  In Lady Midnight, we follow th...

The genius, the author, the hero: Rick Riordan “Someone on Instagram asked what Percy Jackson fans are called. I believe the correct term is ‘long-suffering.’” – Rick Riordan Truer words have never been said. The man who spoke this quote has made us laugh: he made us laugh to the point where we spew the drink from our mouths, till tears of joy stream down our eyes, till we’re so distracted from reality, that the sudden calling of someone asking why we’re laughing seems to break a spell in which we were under. This man also left us gasping in shock, screaming after a huge 360 degree plot twist, crying in grief at the death of yet another beloved character, and so much more just in the span of a few short chapters. Rick Riordan has indeed left us long-suffering. Without further ado, here are the five things we love about the man, so deservingly titled ‘the storyteller of the gods”. 1. He makes the best cliffhangers Now, now, you may be thinking what is there to l...