The Brown Review

Author: Holly Bourne Rating: 3.8/5 Recommend: The most deliciously cheesy, purposefully cliched, and surprisingly realistic love story I've read in a while. Recommended for both romance lovers and romance cynics (a weird combination, I know). The kind of movie that Audrey is highly cynical about in the book It Only Happens In The Movies is a novel that you can read time and time again: during the gooey early days of a relationship, the phase of depression after a horrible breakup, and right after you've finished reading that amazing series and seem to have lost all purpose in life. The story revolves around Audrey Winters, a depressed senior, who is still suffering from the trauma of her last relationship.  I knew I had made the right choice in buying this novel after reading the very first line: Combined with the devastating state of her divorced mother, and quitting Drama - the one course she loves - our heartbroken heroine has pretty much set h...

  Author: Kristin Hannah  Rating: 5/5  Recommend: A book that will make you weep in grief, scream in anger, and question every single belief you have. Be prepared to stay up all night reading. This is the second historical fiction novel I have read upon the Occupation; the first being The Diary of Anne Frank of course. About 20 different people had recommended Kristin Hannah’s gut-wrenching book, The Nightingale, to me in 2018 and to be honest I was really skeptical in the beginning thinking how the novel will ever live to such high expectations – boy was I proved wrong.  The Nightingale deserves every single ounce of the praise it has received and more. Kristin Hannah has superbly managed to weave a heart-breaking and suspenseful storyline in the backdrop of the devastating history of 1945. She had me so immersed in the plot and so involved with the characters that I was in tears by the last page and just about ready to meet these characters i...

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 ...