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Try Not to Breathe
Try Not to Breathe
Holly Seddon | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
8
7.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Amy Stevenson was seriously injured 15 years ago. The person who attacked her has never been caught. Alex Dale is a journalist who has suffered a lot of loss over the past few years, but she is determined to get her life back in order and try to help to find out who hurt Amy. Will Alex be able to solve the mystery? Will she be able to keep her health under control long enough?

There are so many unanswered questions when it comes to the night Amy was attacked. With the help of her ex-husband, Matt, a police officer and Amy's ex-boyfriend, Jake, will Alex be able to find out what really happened to Amy.

This is Holly Seddon's first book and she hit it out of the park. This mystery had you guessing who could have done it. There were a couple of times, when I was certain I knew who the culprit was, but at the end, I was wrong. I was shocked at the end by the turn of events. Alex, dives deep in to Amy's past to find out what is going on. She investigates the case more than the police did when they had the case.

This book had me intrigued from the very beginning. I was invested in Ale and was routing for her to accomplish her goal of helping Amy and the world find out who attacked her. I got worried when she hit a setback in the case, hoping it wouldn't be a setback in her quest to try to get healthy. When her doctor gives her a health update, that isn't quite what she hopes to hear, it puts a fire under her in my opinion, that makes her work harder on the case. Whether it's to beat the inevitable, or to prove that she can still do the job she loves, I'm not sure.

Working with Jacob(Jake) who has his own issues he is going through, proves to be most helpful. Jake has visited Amy quite a bit over the past 15 years. Unfortunately, his wife, Fiona has no idea. With his first child on the way, Jake has to make a decision about whether or not he can keep up this charade, but will Fiona find out before he has a chance to help Alex solve the mystery.

Overall, this was one of the best books I have read this year. It was hard to put down and it kept me captivated throughout the entire book. Highly recommended.
  
Friday
Friday
2011 | Book, Card Game, Fighting, Pirates
Game nights with the group are some of my favorite nights, but pesky schedules and “personal lives” often get in the way. Not being able to play with the group hasn’t slowed my gaming roll though, and I am always on the lookout for good, solo-able games! So when I saw ‘Friday – A Solo Adventure’ at my local used game sale, I knew I had to grab it.

Picture this – you live on a tropical island. One day as you’re walking down by the ocean, you see something on the shore. As you approach, you realize it is a grown man! Turns out this castaway is Robinson Crusoe. You decide to help Crusoe learn the ways of the jungle, combat hazards, build up his strength, and eventually escape your island via a nearby pirate ship. The island is a rough place, though, so you must be diligent in your guidance! Otherwise your newest comrade may not survive…

A cute little card drafting game of survival on a deserted island – how hard can it be, right? I seriously underestimated how tough this game actually is – I have never won a game to date. The premise of the game is simple enough (draw cards, overcome hazards, and build your deck), but successful execution is the tricky part.

It all really comes down to the luck of the draw. Some cards are excellent for fighting hazards, while others can seriously negatively impact a fight. Success or failure depends on how well you shuffle and where the cards end up in your draw pile. That is to be expected though – if all the cards were helpful, the game would be so easy! The balance (or should I say imbalance?) of positive and negative cards is what makes the game so difficult. There are almost as many negative cards as there are positive, which makes every fight feel completely random to me. It is hard to strategize because each turn is almost a 50/50 shot as to whether your next card is positive or negative. The game is supposed to last 3 phases, but I am lucky to survive into phase 2.

Friday will stay in my collection, for the time being, while I continue trying to formulate a working strategy. Overall, though, it is not my go-to solo game. Purple Phoenix Games gives it a 8 / 12. (Josh and Bryan haven’t played it yet!)

https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/friday-a-solo-adventure-review/
  
40x40

Little Ray Of Sunshine (41 KP) rated Damage in Books

Jan 11, 2019 (Updated Feb 10, 2019)  
D
Damage
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Book Review | Damage by Eve Ainsworth
Blurb
HOW CAN YOU HEAL IF YOU CAN'T FACE YOU PAST?
Confident, Popular Gabi has a secret - A secret so terrible she can't tell her family, or her best friend,
 she can't even take pleasure in her beloved skateboarding any more. One day, an impulse turns to something darker

Gabi has never felt so alone. But then she learns that not everyone has wounds you can see.

A searing look at self-harm and acceptance from hugely talented Author Eve Ainsworth.

Review
When reading this book I felt attached to the character Gabi as I know how it feels to lose your Grandad as mine passed away last year. It does make a gap in the family and feel weird.
It was sad that Gabi couldn't tell her parents how she felt and how it is making her feel as her parents always busy running their pub.
When Gabi starts to self-harm she felt so alone and this is the only way to release the sadness and pain. She felt she couldn't tell her best friend and her friends she skates about with as she felt they wouldn't want to be friends with her and she felt they would think she doing it just for attention.

I haven't read a book about self-harm before and I feel I want to read more about Mental Health through fiction and non-fiction books. I read this book during 'Mental Health Awareness Week' and I feel this needs to spread and let people at school to read it as I knew a few of my girl friends who self harmed when I was in Secondary School. I felt there was enough support in school when people who are getting bullied or needs someone professional to talk to and listen to them. I admit at the time my friends where doing this I was there to listen but I felt helpless and didn't know what advice to give them.

What is helpful from this book is the Author Eve Ainsworth has included organizations at the back of the book to help people. I will include them too below:

YOUNG MINDS: www.youngminds.org.uk
HARMLESS: www.harmless.org.uk
THE WISH CENTRE: www.thewishcentre.org.uk
RETHINK: www.rethink.org
MIND: www.mind.org.uk

Or if you need to talk to someone, the following organizations are there 24 hours a day.

CHILDLINE: www.childline.org.uk
Phone: 0800 1111
THE SAMARITANS
www.samaritans.org
Phone: 116 123

If you have anymore organizations you know and would like to include please comment below.

Thanks for reading x
  
PI
Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Original Review Posted at <a href="http://bookwyrming-thoughts.blogspot.com/2013/04/review-parrot-in-the-oven-mi-vida-by-victor-martinez.html">Bookwyrming Thoughts</a>

Note: Formatting is lost due to copy and paste.

     Oh. Another required reading. Yay. After Dreamland's disaster, I was going to call it quits here and go hide in a cubicle for awhile. Not that it's bad idea... but I'm pretty sure I would've failed high school already with that many absences (so not happening).

      Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida is about a fourteen-year-old boy named Manny who lives with his abusive father and just wants to fit in with the others around his neighborhood.

      I had hoped that Parrot in the Oven was going to be majorly better than our last reading in English. I guess it went out okay in the end, but I ended up flipping back and forth to find a certain something.

 A glossary, which I didn't find to my misfortune. With the Spanish terms and translations that were used in the book at the least. It would've have helped me so much since I haven't taken Spanish. Okay, there were a few translations in English after the Spanish throughout the book, but not all of them. I still say that a glossary would have been majorly helpful (and not just to me... I hope). In fact, I have no clue what the title says. Besides the Parrot in the Oven part. I
guess it's time to stroll on over to Google Translator.

      Parrot in the Oven, is a bit different, but similar when compared to other realistic fiction. It might just be me and realistic fiction (because I'm definitely not it's biggest fan, considering the fact I rarely give realistic fiction a high rating...), but there tends to be not so much going on, besides a typical Mexican American teenager with family problems typically contained in realistic fiction and wanting/trying to fit in with others (also typically found in realistic fiction). I might be wrong with that view.
 
*holds up warning sign* ATTENTION: MINI-SPOILER ALERT!
 
You have been warned of the next paragraph containing tiny mini-spoilers that may give away a tad bit too much information about the book. Continue at your own risk.
  
     The end tends to be rushed into 2-3 chapters. Manny was going on with his typical life, until a disaster at a party, and then boop. He decides to join a gang. Shortly after, boop. Someone gets in trouble, he realizes something within just hours/a day and boop. Goes home and "happily ever after," the end.
  
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