Wishing For Wednesday #18

This week on my most excited for list type thing, I have another two I think you guys will love!
So, I'm a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, and so you can imagine my excitement for his version of Hansel and Gretel! I'm well aware a load of you guys love his work too, so feast your eyes!
Next up is a nice little gem I stumbled across, to be honest, I pretty much have one that I've stumbled across each week, I don't know why I bother pointing it out! Anyways, I stumbled across it and when I saw the "Game of Thrones meets Grimms fairy tales" I knew I couldn't resist, to be honest that sold it to me pretty much straight away, let alone the rest of the synopsis!

Hansel And Gretel

The enduring story of the children, the breadcrumb trail and the gingerbread house is brought to life by master storyteller, Neil Gaiman. Who better to retell the Brothers Grimm's greatest, and perhaps darkest, fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel? Coupled with breathtakingly haunting illustrations from Lorenzo Mattotti, you will be enticed into the world and into the woods . . . so beware.

Hansel And Gretel is out December 11th, pre-order your copy here. 

Add it to your GoodReads here. 

Princess Of Thorns

Game of Thrones meets the Grimm's fairy tales in this twisted, fast-paced romantic fantasy-adventure about Sleeping Beauty's daughter, a warrior princess who must fight to reclaim her throne.

Though she looks like a mere mortal, Princess Aurora is a fairy blessed with enhanced strength, bravery, and mercy yet cursed to destroy the free will of any male who kisses her. Disguised as a boy, she enlists the help of the handsome but also cursed Prince Niklaas to fight legions of evil and free her brother from the ogre queen who stole Aurora's throne ten years ago.

Will Aurora triumph over evil and reach her brother before it's too late? Can Aurora and Niklaas break the curses that will otherwise forever keep them from finding their one true love?

Princess Of Thorns is out now! Buy your copy here. 

Add it to your GoodReads here. 

A Week In Paris

A Week In Paris
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher

1961: Born on the day that WW2 broke out, 21-year-old Fay Knox cannot remember her early childhood in London, before she moved to a Norfolk village with her mother, Kitty. Though she has seen a photograph of her father, she does not recall him either. He died, she was told, in an air raid, and their house destroyed along with all their possessions. Why then, on a visit to Paris on tour with her orchestra, does a strange series of events suggest that she spent the war there instead? There is only one clue to follow, an address on the luggage label of an old canvas satchel. But will the truth hurt or heal?

1937: Eugene Knox, a young American doctor, catches sight of 19-year-old Kitty Travers on the day she arrives in Paris, and cannot get her out of his mind. She has come to study the piano at the famed Conservatoire, and lodges at a convent near Notre Dame. Eugene and Kitty will fall in love, marry and have a daughter, but France's humiliating defeat by Germany is not far behind, and the little family must suffer life under Nazi occupation. Some Parisians keep their heads down and survive, others collaborate with the enemy while others resist. The different actions of Eugene, Kitty and their friends will have devastating consequences that echo down the generations.

So, I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but it's safe to say this gave me so much more than what I was expecting, I was expecting solid romance all the way through and I don't know what else, while there is romance, it's not the main part of the story, although it has to be noted, I thought both where kind of similar. 

We switch from time to time, as the story of Fay's mother Kitty is told, and the time hops where perfectly placed and very well done, as a secondary character is telling the story, she will lead in to it and then boom, it's Kitty's pov in her time with what's happening. I must say, it was very well depicted, I've not had the fortune of going to Paris yet, but I feel like I've been there, admittedly to an out of date Paris, but still. I also didn't know all that much about France in WW2, I learned mostly about England and Germany, so I was fascinated to see what kind of things went on in France, with the persecution of the Jews stretching to there and so on. There was such a lot of historical information, and it was all relayed perfectly, capturing your interest but not bogging down the narrative. 

Admittedly, I started reading this and was intrigued, but felt like it hit a bit of a slow patch, to be honest I kind of felt like all of Fay's  pov was a bit slow for me, it didn't capture my attention much as Kitty's parts of the story. Kitt's narrative was fast paced, and just totally fascinated me and gripped my attention and I couldn't stop reading, Fay's pov was a bit meh for me, but that could be because I didn't like Fay that much. 

Out of the two lead females, I much preferred Kitty, she was fairly realistic to me, and she sprung to life in my minds eye, all her reactions where ones that I feel any person would have, and I felt quite a connection to her. Fay however, I did not like at all, she doesn't really take her mothers feelings in to consideration, and it really annoyed me how she'd keep whining on about her mother and how angry she was with her and this and that, and delving in to everything and thinking badly of her mother, because to be honest, if you'd been Kitty, you wouldn't bloody well want to talk about it either would you? Especially to the child who caused your husbands death! It wasn't her fault, she was only a child, although it is a scene I'm fairly sure I've read or seen somewhere before, but still, she can't seem to grasp how her mother would feel about everything that had happened and what talking about it would have been like. 

So yeah, I didn't like Fay at all, so I couldn't really connect with her, to be honest I skim read all of her parts, I would have skipped them entirely, but I was intrigued by the conflict going on at the time, as I wasn't aware of much of it. 

I don't really have much to say about Fay and her parts of the story, but Kitty's parts? You could feel the tension and the uncertainty and the fear from the streets of occupied and pre-occupied Paris oozing off the page. I could picture all of those parts as if I was watching a movie in my head. I had not read from this view point before so like I said, I was fascinated. While there was a lot of danger about, creating the atmosphere I previously mentioned, it was also full of little moments that warm the heart, when you see certain certain characters/people willing to risk their lives to help others, Jews, English citizens, Americans, English soldiers brought to the hospital and needing to escape before the Germans get them and so on. It shows how not all of humanity where bad at that time period, and bravery wasn't just on the battlefield.

The plot was complex, there was a lot going on, I felt like it was kind of unnecessary at some points because in all fairness, she could have just asked her mother, at that point she was willing to tell her. And when it got to the big reveal, what I'm assuming is the big secret, I was kind of disappointed, I was a bit "oh is that it", don't get me wrong, it was serious, but I guess I was expecting something else, or something even huger, to harbour feelings like Kitty does. Although I did actually guess what had actually happened to her father, Fay's part in it was a surprise but I was a bit "hmmmm I have deja'd this vou". 

I also kind of felt like the whole train and orphanage thing was unnecessary, like oh another bad thing that happened that strings the plot out and provides Kitty with a reason to dislike Natalie. I should also note I think character development was sacrificed for other things in the book. I would have quite liked to see more of Serge as well, as his was an interesting story. 

So, this is a bit mixed for me, it was a nice surprise because there was more to it than I thought and had assumed, but Kitty was the character of the two that engaged me and kept me reading, Fay's sections for me where skim read to get to the next exciting thing that's going on in Kitty's life. So this book has its good and its bad basically, but I still think it's worth a read, because the history is fascinating.

The Balloonist

The Balloonist
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher

Lieutenant William Fraser, of the Royal Flying Corps, has had one hell of a journey. Starting in Germany pre-war, he ends up hanging out with an American reporter, fleeing, and joining the Belgians and fighting with his new best friend Claude, he meets and becomes close to the King and Queen of Belgium, after a particularly bad attack by the Germans, and losing Claude, Willy ends up four thousand feet above the Western Front....in a balloon. Going under the name of his dead friend, he's on a mission to reach Claude's wife to give him his last letter to her. Willy is now a balloon observer, hanging under a gasbag full of extremely explosive hydrogen, which is anchored thousands of feet above the Ypres Salient. Trailed by said American journalist, who's determined to find out his whole story, Willy is settling into a role where he gets to help direct batteries. That is, until his line is accidentally hit, and cut, and he drifts across enemy lines to crash on a Belgian farm. He's nursed by them and sheltered, and it turns out the farmers daughter is the woman he's been looking for, they help him, and a German deserter to escape across the flooded delta, where he has a close call with a firing squad, but eventually ends up back to his duties. It's there, back up in the air, that he will have to make a horrendously difficult decision, one that could threaten the life of the woman he has come to love.

Well, this book has a totally unique angle on the war! The Balloonist is so incredibly well researched and utterly fascinating. I couldn't stop reading, I wanted to know more about this side of the war I haven't seen, I was so caught up in the world, and the characters and what was happening I  honestly couldn't put the book down! It was incredibly different to what I was expecting, I mean, I don't know why, but I was expecting this to be aaaalll about the romance with a smidge of history but I was totally wrong.

Obviously the book has a lot of action, so there's always something going on, something grabbing your attention and sucking you in, I learned so much from this book as well as being thoroughly fascinated and entertained. I incredibly shamefully had never heard or known about the Balloonists before I read this book, and they really should be talked about more! They where so incredibly important, and so good at their job, and incredibly daring, you know, they take such huge risks, it was an incredibly dangerous job, but they did it anyway and must have had so much courage and bravery to do it, you wouldn't catch me in one of those in any circumstance, let alone when I'm being shot at while a war rages on! Utterly fascinating how they did it, and how it all worked. anyway this goes from pre-war through to the midst of war, and there's tonnes of different scenarios and historic events before the ballooning starts, I don't want to give too much away, so that's all I'll say!

This is quite an emotional read, I mean obviously it would be, but like I found myself rolling on emotional waves between happy, even chuckling at a few moments, and then being so profoundly sad from what I'd read, and thinking about the situation more. It's a true rollercoaster of a book, you go from dangerous situation, to even more dangerous situation. You can feel the danger and tension oozing off the page.

I enjoyed the Churchill cameo, I think it painted him as not quite the hero everyone thinks he is, if that really did he happen and he caused that to  happen, granted it was before the war, but everyone paints him as a hero and never really mentions his life before, or if they have, I haven't read about it! The focus was very much on the Belgians for the majority of the book, the British where kind of douches to Willy, except for the Balloonist group! What fascinated me, is that we get a real look at the Belgians and what they where doing to try and stop from being invaded, and their tactics, for a nice chunk of the book, I've only really read about the British point of view. I actually quite liked the King and Queen of Belgium!

The Balloonist has kind of an awesome ending, it really left you wondering about the romance, if they ever eventually ended up together, probably quite like wives and girlfriends where left wondering about their own romances, it was quite a nice touch! I loved making up a little ending of my own! You want to know what happens next, want to know what daring feat Willy attempts next, but you also have fun making up your own ending. Although if there is a sequel, I won't be complaining!

The  Balloonist was incredibly vivid, the world well and truly comes to life around you and sucks you in, not to mention how atmospheric the book is, you can feel every emotion oozing off the page, feel the danger, the uncertainty, the heartbreak, the horror and so on. The Balloonist captivates you and your attention isn't allowed to wander, the book keeps all your focus on the story. The Balloonist is realistic and believable, obviously it's historical and based on real events, but sometimes authors take liberties and things get stretched, not the case in this, everything was organic and natural and well...real.

The characters where all so colourful, I loved all of them! Willy was such a badass, I mean, he was determined to fight and help no matter what other people did to him, kicking him down the ranks, making him change his name and so on, he did the most daring things, and he was such a deep character, so well written and kind of larger than life to me. Claude. Why, whyyyy! I loved him, I really did, he was so funny, with the trumpeting and the scene at the fortress, I can't even. I loved him, he was the most colourful character there, and I loved his friendship with Willy and I was so gutted. You could really see the bond of comrades develop and what it meant to each.

Otto was another of my favourite characters, he was also a total eyeopener as well, because he was a half British, German soldier, who deserted from the German army because he never actually wanted to fight for the Germans, and it was eye opening because there probably where soldiers like Otto, fighting when they didn't want to, or fighting for what they felt was the wrong side. It was also eye opening to see what Otto was told, he and the  other soldiers where basically fed lies and told they where going to one place to do one thing and ending up in Belgium.

The romance should be mentioned, the lovely lady was kind of awesome. I liked her. The romance developed very naturally and subtly, and was very organic and realistic. I enjoyed how the romance was subtle, and a note underneath everything else going on. I had originally thought this was going to be all about the romance, and I was reading, and so captivated and astounded by this book and the events, and it kept going and there was no woman, and then when it eventually rolled around I was like "omg it's going to take over now" but it didn't. It was there, but it wasn't in your face, you'd quite possibly have to squint to see it! The book's synopsis leads you to believe it's all about this Balloonists and the other Balloonists and this romance across a war kind of thing, that's why I wrote my own synopsis with what I feel is a better representation of the book because so much happens!

The Balloonist is most definitely a must read, it's truly astounding. So well written, with a fantastic, engaging plot that keeps you guessing, and shows all of the pitfalls of war, as well as the heroes fighting to win. It's a truly incredible read, and everything is so believable and well researched, and well written, and the characters jump off the page and the setting is vivid, and atmospheric and sucks you in, and you want to know so much more than the incredibly amount you learn! I mean, I want to know even more about the Balloonists!

Aaaaaaaaaaand that's enough rambling from me! But seriously, YOU HAVE TO READ THIS! Whether you like historical or not, or just have a passing interest in history or the war, these guys deserve some recognition to be honest!

Wishing For Wednesday #17

This week I'm most looking forward to these two little gems!
I don't even think  it's a secret anymore that I'm a HUGE fan of Jennifer L Armentrout, and so obviously I can't miss out on her new book! Sooo it makes my most looked forward to list, no surprise there! You gotta admit though...it sounds reaaaalllyy good!
Second I have a little one that I stumbled across, I appear to be quite good at stumbling across gems!
So anyways, I stumbled across it, it piqued my interest because it sounds like the kind of thing I would love, but I'll let you judge that for yourself!

Wicked

Things are about to get Wicked in New Orleans.
Twenty-two year old Ivy Morgan isn’t your average college student. She, and others like her, know humans aren’t the only thing trolling the French Quarter for fun… and for food. Her duty to the Order is her life. After all, four years ago, she lost everything at the hands of the creatures she’d sworn to hunt, tearing her world and her heart apart.

Ren Owens is the last person Ivy expected to enter her rigidly controlled life. He’s six feet and three inches of temptation and swoon-inducing charm. With forest-green eyes and a smile that’s surely left a stream of broken hearts in its wake, he has an uncanny, almost unnatural ability to make her yearn for everything he has to offer. But letting him in is as dangerous as hunting the cold-blooded killers stalking the streets. Losing the boy she loved once before had nearly destroyed her, but the sparking tension that grows between them becomes impossible for Ivy to deny. Deep down, she wants… she needs more than what her duty demands of her, what her past has shaped for her.

But as Ivy grows closer to Ren, she realizes she’s not the only one carrying secrets that could shatter the frail bond between them. There’s something he’s not telling her, and one thing is for certain. She’s no longer sure what is more dangerous to her—the ancient beings threatening to take over the town or the man demanding to lay claim to her heart and her soul.

Wicked is out December 8th, pre-order your copy here.
Add it to your GoodReads here.

Suspicion

Mysterious. Magnificent. Creepy. Welcome to Rockford Manor.

"There's something hidden in the Maze." Seventeen-year-old Imogen has never forgotten the last words her father said to her seven years ago, before the blazing fire that consumed him, her mother, and the gardens of her family's English country manor.

Haunted by her parents' deaths, Imogen moves to New York City with her new guardians. But when a letter arrives with the news of her cousin's untimely death, revealing that Imogen is now the only heir left to run the estate, she returns to England and warily accepts her role as duchess.

All is not as it seems at Rockford, and Imogen quickly learns that dark secrets lurk behind the mansion's aristocratic exterior, hinting that the spate of deaths in her family were no accident. And at the center of the mystery is Imogen herself--and Sebastian, the childhood friend she has secretly loved for years. Just what has Imogen walked into?

Suspicion is out December 9th, pre-order your copy here. 
Add it to your GoodReads here. 

The Ghosts Of Heaven

The Ghosts Of Heaven
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher.

Spirals are everywhere, it's existed since time began, and it can be seen everywhere. It's there in Australia when a girl walks through a forest, it should have been there when she made her mark on the cave wall. It's there in England, carved in to the ground, it can be seen in the waters Anna is dunked in when she's accused of witchcraft, and it's on the toy her younger brother plays with, a brother who saves her. It's there in the US, a source of fear for a mad poet, taunting him in the form of a staircase. And it's present in the future, on a space craft speeding through...well..space. They are all connected by a spiral.

Woooooww, okay, I see why everyone is raving about this book! It's so incredibly unique and different and I still can't quite wrap my head around it! I tried to do my own synopsis without giving too much away, you can be the judge of if I succeeded! I read the book in the order the author suggested, and each quarter was different from the last. One was numbered after a sequence, one was in poem form, one was diary entries and one was regular chapters, and I've never read a book that was done in so many different ways. And we all know I love unique things which is why this has me squealing!

Each quarter is around 100 pages or so long, but each gives you a feel for the time, the setting and the character. You feel for the character and get a connection to them. I mean the first quarter was written in kind of a poem style, and I still felt a connection to the character, despite not knowing too much about her! Each quarter has such a vivid setting, a world is created in each quarter that sucks you in and each is different to the others, obviously.

I was particularly impressed with the first quarter, because it was short chapters, set out like a poem, with lines, which sounds stupid when I'm describing but you'll see what I mean when you read it! I was so impressed because there wasn't as much of a word count as the other quarters, with just a few words I could so easily picture the caves and the paintings, the people, the way of life, and you get a lot of information about the culture of the time. I'm not entirely sure about the exact time, but it was set in Australia (I think). But yeah, I was fascinated by the tale, and wanted to know what happens next but it leaves you hanging! She totally thought of the idea of writing like on a bit of a paper and leaving messages and stuff, and of course the spiral was present throughout.

So it was a total jolt when you move to England circa the witch trials and the prat in the carriage. This quarter well and truly got my emotions working, it really riled me up. I always get so riled reading stories about the witch trials and this was no exception, I get so angry that poor innocent girls pretty much got murdered because other village members where jealous, or a bloke got rejected. Ugh. I just can't get my head around the fact that people could live with themselves doing that. This one had a more heartbreaking ending for  me to be honest, and it really left me with emotions running high. Again spirals everywhere. Lots of jealousy and betrayal and so on.

The third quarter was in the US, I want to say 1930's but I think I'm wrong, but it was before there was too much known about mental illness I think, SO ANYWAY, this one is set in an insane asylum. This quarter was the diary entries, and it's about a new doctor there, who there was more to than met the eye, with his wife and everything, and he makes a connection with a patient there who is kind of terrified of spirals. He's a poet. This one connects to the previous two, incredibly well, there's pictures of the cave paintings and his daughter is reading about Anna and her trial! This one was a very gritty look, the patients where being abused in different ways, and it was clearly not a nice environment and you got a huge vibe off the quarter, not quite sinister, but definitely dodgy. The injustice in this really got me worked up as well!

The last quarter takes us in to the future and in to space, on a ship heading for New Earth. This one, again, ties all the parts together, first, second and third, and it was kind of like a murder mystery, the passengers are dying and our narrator has to work out what's going on and who's killing them. It's a bit more complicated than the other quarters, there's two of him and it involves a spiral/helix and it's a time type thing, a time type of complicated. I'm really not making any sense, trying to explain without giving too much away! This one is also the one that's chapters but that are numbered in a certain sequence, and there's little time jumps. To be honest each has a different and distinct narrative style.

None of the quarters are happy stories with happy endings. They're all quite powerful, sad, heartbreaking, serious type things. But they're all so well written you can feel the atmosphere of each quarter, each has a different vibe to it, each is different from the last, and each is twined together so incredibly subtly. The settings are also quite different from each other, but incredibly vivid. The characters are all so well written and developed for the little section they're allocated and the plots are quite developed but simple.

The plot is very complex. Each quarter dives right in, and you immediately grasp what's going on and what's happened previously, and then it's the perfect fast pace, concisely detailing the rest of the plot to the conclusion. I mean, I'm astounded at the fact there's four mini stories so perfectly written in so few pages with such detail, it's incredible. This is hard to review because, for me at least, it was like four mini books in one instead of one book!

This book is so totally for intelligent readers, people more intelligent than me I would imagine, I don't think Sedgwick was going for the "ooohh pretty words making pretty worlds" thing I had going on. Each story is kind of eerily similar, in a way, and this book is all about the symbolism. It's got plenty of history in its pages (something I love) aaaand for the super intelligent types there's philosophy and psychology, there may have been science in the last quarter, but science and I don't get along. You won't just be entertained by this book, you'll think. The book will really make you think. Although I felt quite disconnected from the last two stories, I was so invested in the first two, but the last two I was a bit like hmmmm. Not sure if it was on purpose or not, but even though I wasn't as invested, I was still enthralled by the storytelling.

So in conclusion. This book won't be for everyone, but if you're on the fence, you should give it a shot because while the stories are simple, what's going on behind the scenes as it where, with the connections and so on (sorry I'm so shit at explaining this) is more complex, aka there's bigger stuff going on. So anyway, the writing and storytelling is so beautiful and so incredibly detailed and well done considering the shortness of each quarter. So yeah...DOOO IIITT.

The Walled City

The Walled City
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher

730. That's how many days I've been trapped.
18. That's how many days I have left to find a way out.

DAI, trying to escape a haunting past, traffics drugs for the most ruthless kingpin in the Walled City. But in order to find the key to his freedom, he needs help from someone with the power to be invisible....

JIN hides under the radar, afraid the wild street gangs will discover her biggest secret: Jin passes as a boy to stay safe. Still, every chance she gets, she searches for her lost sister....

MEI YEE has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years, dreaming of getting out while watching the girls who try fail one by one. She's about to give up, when one day she sees an unexpected face at her window.....

Couldn't have said it better myself GoodReads, I'm sucking at coming up with my own synopsis lately but I'm such a dick when I do mine because I always end up giving too much away and ugh. So yeah. 

Weeellll Nina is amazing at sending me books I end up totally loving, it's like she has a superpower or something. This book is all go right from the beginning, and I was drawn in right from the beginning, from that point, I was a goner and I couldn't put it down. I'm still shocked that the Walled City was an actual real place, I was totally shocked and fascinated when reading the authors note and looking at the pictures, I can't even imagine living in that place! 

I really enjoyed the portrayal of the different types of people that would live in that sort of place, the vagrants, the gangs, the prostitutes, fugitives, and general criminals. None of it was romanticized, like things like that so often are, it was very gritty, brutal, natural, organic, real etc, it was all portrayed with respect as much as being brutally honest, and you feel such an empathy for all of the different types of people. 

We switch POV's from Jin, Dai and Mei, each of them is vastly different from the others, and has a unique personality, each has qualities you admire and each is strong in their own way. Each of them you form a connection with and really feel for them. Jin changes her entire life, to live in the Walled City and look for Mei, she's strong enough to go in to that place voluntarily and help Dai even though she doesn't entirely trust him, just to get to search another brothel for her sister. Mei is strong enough to rebel against the master, despite the consequences she knows will occur, and turn down a way out from the brothel to help Dai, and Dai, well he's strong enough to turn round and help Mei and Jin as well as following his own plan, I mean he takes Jin out of the Walled City, goes back home knowing he could be arrested, just to save her life. 

Each character has so much depth to them and is written so well that they can easily be pictured, and you can easily get a feel for them, the chapters are quite small, but you still get a strong feel for them within the first few chapters. 

I loved the different POV's because the changes where perfect, each POV switched at the right moment, and the POV's where used to keep you guessing. When Dai is left in the brothel and the gun goes off? No POV for him for a few chapters, so you really do start to believe he's dead, and you're like "oh my God....but....what?!" but then it's like BOOM he's alive, and he's back with his POV. It was genius, seriously, I've never seen POV's used that way, usually they're just there to show some more perspective on a scene. The different POV's are not only used to add to the tension and the suspense and the mystery, but you always see what's going on with other characters instead of the same scene from another perspective. You see Mei and how she's faring in the brothel with her part of the plan and so on. As well as the thoughts of the characters and what's going on with them. 

The story was full of an overwhelming atmosphere, it was incredibly powerful, because you're not reading about some fictional world where fictional things happen, you're reading about a real place, or what used to be a real place anyway, and real things that would have gone on there. Not to mention the fact that drug trafficking and brothels/prostitutes being forced in to the business, does actually happen in this day and age, and not only is it a scary thought, it makes reading this so brutally powerful. Each chapter left you wanting more, they where short, but they all ended making you want to read on and the atmosphere, well, it made  me read on because I was rooting for the characters to escape it! 

The plot was very well done, I don't think the book would have worked without the multi-pov, there was a smidge of romance, subtly threaded underneath, almost as an after thought, and by no means the main attraction. You have a cast of colourful characters, not just the main characters, but secondary characters and extra's (excuse the actor terminology), running around in this incredibly vivid world, fantastically crafted so you get an atmosphere that's oozing off the page, aaannd all of this with a fantastic plot that hooks you in and keeps you reading, there's action, there's plot twists that are fully "OH MY GOD" shocking and at points it has you on the edge of your seat. 

I was kind of gutted though because I totally thought Jin was going to end up with Dai, and I was really rooting for them but he ended up with Mei, and poor Jin was left without anyone. Although I do get there wasn't really time, or an appropriate place in the plot to introduce a romance for Jin, but still.....POOR JIN. She did all that work to help everyone else out! 

The Walled City, despite what it's being called, is not in actual fact Dystopian, it is based on a very real place, and not everyone is going to love it, it may be too gritty for some people and they might not like the concept, but The Walled City is definitely worth a shot because it's truly fantastic. Everything is so well done, so thought out, so well described and everything comes alive as soon as you start reading. This isn't the kind of book I usually go for either, not gonna lie, I do have quite a penchant for the sunshine and rainbows books, but I really found this fascinating and incredibly written.