Tag Archives: Death Wish

2015 Reading Challenge

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I originally found this challenge on Facebook and few months ago and decided that I wanted to participate in it. It is a year-long challenge that would force me to read books out of my comfort level. I thought it would be really cool and fun. Recently I found the original Goodreads group that set up the challenge and all the mini challenges to read throughout the year. I found out that there are a lot more challenges that what was posted on Facebook. With this new list, I have taken all the books that I have read this year and placed them in each category. I have doubled up on books because a lot of challenges allow you to do that. My goal for the rest of the year is to make updates on this challenge periodically.

  1. a book with more than 500 pages
  • The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
  1. a romance
  2. a book that became a movie
  • Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
  1. a book published this year
  • The Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan
  1. a book with a number in the title
  1. a book written by someone under 30
  2. a book with nonhuman characters
  • Rat Queens Vol. 1 & 2
  1. a funny book
  • The Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan
  1. a book by a female author
  • Adventures of Funeral Crashing #1 by Milda Harris
  • Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
  • Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope Osborne
  • How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor
  1. a mystery or thriller
  1. a book with a one-word title
  1. a book of short stories
  1. a book set in a different country
  1. a nonfiction book
  2. a popular author’s first book
  1. a book from your favorite author that you haven’t read yet
  2. a book a friend recommended
  3. a Pulitzer-prize winning book
  4. a book based on a true story
  5. a book at the bottom of your to-read list
  • Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
  1. a book your mom loves
  2. a book that scares you
  3. a book more than 100 years old
  1. a book based entirely on its cover
  1. a book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t
  2. a memoir
  3. a book you can finish in a day
  • Ms. Marvel Vol. 1
  • Ms. Marvel Vol. 2
  • Rat Queens Vol. 1
  • Rat Queens Vol. 2
  • Smile
  • Anya’s Ghost
  1. a book with antonyms in the title
  2. a book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit
  1. a book that came out the year you were born
  2. a book with bad reviews
  3. a trilogy (the first)
  1. a trilogy (the second)
  1. a trilogy (the third)
  1. a book from your childhood
  1. a book with a love triangle
  1. a book set in the future
  1. a book set in high school
  1. a book with a color in the title
  1. a book that made/makes you cry
  2. a book with magic
  1. a graphic novel
  1. a book by an author you’ve never read before
  • Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee
  1. a book you own but have never read
  2. a book that takes place in your hometown
  3. a book that was originally written in another language
  1. a book set during Christmas (or similar holiday)
  2. a book written by an author with your same initials
  3. a play
  4. a banned book
  5. a book based on OR turned into a tv show
  6. 52. a book you started but never finished
So far that is what I have completed for the 2015 reading challenge. I am planning on giving you an update for this challenge either the end of August or the end of September. I am not doing the challenges in order like everyone else since I started so late. I do hope that you will enjoy seeing my progress. See you next time. Happy Reading!

Death Wish Review

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Before I begin with the Death Wish review, I will admit that I was given this book for free for an honest review. As such, this review will be done a little different. I will do the pros and cons for the book, but I will also be looking at other features of the book that I felt did not belong in one category, however, they did affect the rating.

Death Wish by Megan TayteDeath Wish by Megan Tayte is about a young woman, Scarlet, who is shocked over the death of her sister and is trying to find out why and get some answers. In the process of discovering her sister’s decision, she begins to discover who and what she is.

As I have mentioned before, there were features that didn’t belong in a specific category. These features are setting and characters. For both of these features, as much as I did enjoy them, there were moments of time that I did not enjoy them so much.

The first one is setting. Don’t get me wrong, I love London and the UK. I have been to London before, and I can tell you that it is beautiful. However, it took me over half the book to finally piece together that the town was in the UK. For the longest time I thought she was living in her grandparents cottage in the East Coast of the US, especially the New England area. The characters spoke with zero accents or use of British slang, and there was very little outside world connection. What got me to realize that the place was in the UK and not in the US was when our main character was trying to find out travel times from her beach home to London and was using shorter amounts of time between the two locations than I expected. Even after the realization, it still took me a while to get the setting straight.

The second feature that I want to talk about is the characters. The characters were okay, however, they were not believable or lovable. Scarlet is okay, but in the end, I would not want to hang out with her all the time. In addition, Megan Tayte left the parents hanging in the air. You do have some background story about how the parents really did not love their children, but nothing about the choices they made, or why they made those choices. The father barely made an entrance, and the mother was there to drive the plot forward or to create an additional problem for Scarlet, our main character. The other characters were also there for three reasons: 1) teach Scarlet a lesson, 2) provide Scarlet information about her sister, or 3) provide a service for her.

Moving on from two features, I will be moving onto the cons. I felt as though there were a lot more cons with this book than previous books that I have read this year. Those cons are the format, the love triangle, the conveniences, vagueness and the feeling of the author purposely prolonging the book.

Let us first start with the format. I will admit that there might be some human error when I downloaded the book. I traditionally download the book onto my computer and move it onto my Nook. However, with the computer problems that I had the past month or so, I also had to use a different route. Though after a few times on several different devices, and getting the same result, I am beginning to wonder what really happened. In the beginning, the story was normal but the conversations were done in either bold or italic font. I tried the format out for a bit, but after a few pages it became annoying to the point where I was thinking about not finishing the book. In the end, the story somehow deleted itself off of my Nook, and when I redownload the book, the format was normal. I will admit that Scarlet’s thought process and poems are done in italics, but the conversation format that happened earlier did not happen.

The other con that I have is the elusive love triangle that exist with YA. I am glad to see that our main character realized this, but when I first read it, all I could think of was really? It felt like a cliche and something the author thought needed to be done to make her story a bit more heart wrenching. In the end, it was annoying and it felt it was something to help prolong the story.

This brings me to my other con of the feeling that the author tried to prolong the story. This also goes with my last con of the vagueness that the story had. I understand that in the perspective of our main character, we would not know all the facts and details. However, that vagueness lead to the feeling of the author trying to purposely prolong the story, which then lead to my annoyance with the book. There were times in which I did feel as though the author was prolonging the book without the vagueness. I don’t want to spoil the book, but there was a scene that felt was a repeat and the story could have moved forward better without.

Moving on from the cons, I did have a few pros. First of all, I did enjoy the paranormal/mystery element of the story. I normally do not read paranormal or mystery, so it was fun to switch it up and read something different. I really enjoyed how Tayte combine the two and has set the book up for the other books. The other pro that I enjoyed was the plot for this book. Tayte mainly focused on our character discovering herself, not only what, but who she really is. It was fun to see Scarlet grow as a character. Though I do need to point out that this is the first book in a five book series and Tayte has started to develop the plot for the series, even though it took a while. Almost everything with the plot took a while. In a sense, the discovering self-plot is a bit more believable with the death of the sister. The final pro that I enjoyed with the book was the symbolism. There was some religious symbolism that existed throughout the book. It was enjoyable and intertwined with the text beautifully.

In the end, I did give this book three out of five stars. Even with all the little annoyances, I did enjoy the story as a whole. It would not be a book that I would reread, and I am still debating as to whether or not I would finish the series. Because of the rating, I am on the fence with recommending this book. I generally recommend books that I love or absolutely love (four to five-star ratings). If you are into paranormal and a little bit of mystery, come check this book out. I do believe that you might enjoy this small quick read.