C.K. Robertson's Blog, page 15

Book Review: The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Hello Readers & Friends,

I just finished reading The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton and I'm excited to post my review. I got this book at a Blind Book Date stall and had no clue what to expect. When I opened it, I loved the blurb, but woudn't have ever picked it up myself because I judge a book by it's cover (sad but true) and I hate the cover. It's out of focus and tacky and gross and I don't even know who the girl is meant to be because she doens't have a Belle bun so it's just a random out of focus, fuzzy woman. (Is she meant to be Camille?!)

So I went into it not really knowing what to expect but was really pleasantly surprised, and gave it 4 stars because I really looked forward to reading it every day and am already looking forward to ordering the sequel.

I loved the idea of delving into concepts to do with the pressures of beauty and society's need to be more and more beautiful, even at the cost of pain. It's like plastic surgery on steroids in this book, with The Belles magical women with the ability to completely recreate a person's appearance. The irony behind the fact that everyone wants to look different by changing themselves is not lost.
I liked the main character, the way Camille is always trying to encourage her clients to accept themselves and tells them that they are beautiful as they are, despite being forced into performing ridiculous changes.
I love the friendships Camille has with Bree and Remy, it gives her a credible likeness.

I really rated the newspaper headlines that are shared sporadically throughout the book and help with world-building and giving the reader an understanding of how everything works, such as being unable to make organs younger in order to allow for natural deaths. The world-building in general was nice. Especially the teacup animals!



The writing is extremely descriptive, sweet, fluffy and flowery. It creates beautiful ornate and opulent images in your mind, but sometimes overdoes it and can be tiringly repetetive. For example, we don't have to hear about Camille setting up her beauty table every single time she has a beauty appointment. We know how it works after one explanation.

The love-interest was, in my opinion, kind of gross and a bore. He was that typical overly arrogant young boy and I didn't dig him, but I also liked how Camille responded to him with feigned irritation and didn't pander to him. I did not read this book for the romance and you'll be disappointed in it if that's what your after - it's not a book for that at all. He's just in the background as an irritant, rather than a key part of Camille's story.

- SPOILERS - 
 
The book was extremely easy to read, and there were good mysteries that kept you page-turning. I felt it did include a lot of diversity which I loved considering the beauty themes of the story. We had lesbians and black women and curvy women and it was very refreshing how open and liberal this world had been made to be. I know this may anger some people who have given this book very few stars due to the Bury Your gays trope, but I have to disagree. Unless I misunderstood, the lesbian character was killed for betraying the princess, not for being a lesbian? Or maybe I misunderstand that trope entirely, it's a touchy subject for a lot of people I'm sure.

The book had a lot of very disturbing scenes, that murder scene in particular, but also some relating to animals and it could be very dark compared to the image the cover gives, but I enjoyed the twists and turns and horrors that came. The antagonist was cruel and I hated her justly and they built her to be quite terrifying.

Also, I hated Amber. She was a selfish, narcisistic weirdo.

Did you read it?
What did you think?

Love,
C x

Freak Circus: Meet The Characters

Hello Readers & Friends,

Whenever I start writing a new story, I always like to have a reference for my characters. It helps me envision them and their personalities better, and to write stronger descriptions.
Usually I go on Pinterest and find model images or random people, but for Freak Circus Wattpad offers an option of using celebrities to name as a 'cast'.

So, I sat and thought for a long time about which celebs would play my characters in a film, and came up with my list. I figured this would be a great way to introduce my characters in more detail.
For anyone who doesn't know, Freak Circus is my current WIP and the first draft is being shared on my Wattpad as and when it's written.

The story follows 5 circus performers on a heist - but I'm conscious of it being too similar to SoC so am still fine-tuning as I go!

So, are you ready to meet my gang of weirdos?


Sofiya Alvarez (The Slayer)
To portray Sofiya I chose Eiza Gonzalez. She's sexy and stand-offish in the way I imagine Sofiya to be. She's strong, sassy, independent and often comes across quite cold. Sofiya is known as The Slayer, and her circus talent is knife-throwing. She never misses.
She learnt her skill and accuracy from her older brother, who joined a gang and is now in prison. She had a catholic latina upbringing.

Sayuri Takahashi (The Bird)
Karen Fukuhara was a good fit for Sayuri, who is the quietest member of the group. She is a wallflower, soaking in every detail of what is happening around her and using it to her advantage. She is the youngest and smallest in the group, raised by the circus folk. As such, she is also one of the most talented - a skilled aerial performer and tightrope walker.

Evelyn Price (The Doll)
I dabbled between Margot Robbie and Amanda Seyfried a LOT for this casting. In the end, Amanda is a better fit looks-wise (Margot is a little too girl-next-door) but Margot also has the seductive nastiness that Amanda lacked, so I went with her.
Evelyn had a rough upbringing and joined the circus aged 14 after being in and out of foster homes. Thanks to her biology, she is a contortionist, double-jointed in several places. She's also a burlesque dancer and self-taught escape artist. She is ruthless, but also just wants happiness and comfort in her life.

Jaxon Ward (The Whisperer)
This was between Zac Efron and Robert Sheehan, but Robert just has that rough prettiness that I preferred to Efron's clean-cut nature.
Jaxon is a hypnotist, born into the circus. He doesn't know any other life, but often feels trapped and lost. He is gay, something rejected by his father, and responds by being as theatrically himself as possible. Always the first to want to party to forget his sins.

Henderson Gray (The Flame)
Titus Makin Jr is the charismatic face I wanted for Henderson. Henderson is the oldest, the leader of the pack and the one they turn to for advice. He loves to perform, he loves to be center of attention and he leads their Junior circus performances. He has no family, raised by the circus similarly to Sayuri. His talent lies with fire. He eats, performs, dances, juggles and breaths it.

Dustin Giles
 
Dylan O'Brien was perfect for outsider, Dustin. Dustin is from a privileged background, son to two millionaires but neglected by his rich family. He's naive, sheltered, raised in a bubble and desperate to rebel against his lifestyle. He finds himself tied to the circus in a strange way, and things all start to go crazy from then on.


I hope you liked meeting my characters. If you want to read the first few drafts, they're up on my Wattpad :)

Love,
C x

Using Insights to Boost your Bookstagram

Hello Readers & Friends,

Today I'm doing a mini marketing post about how you can dissect Instagram Insights tools to help boost your Bookstagram account.
For some reason I always associate insights with work, so forget that it's something I can access for my own personal Instagram accounts and I checked today for the first time in ages and found some really interesting information!

So, let's start with the basics.
1. Make sure your account is a business account. (You can do this in Settings.) You may have to wait a couple of weeks to get decent insights, it won't have pulled through enough information if you've only just switched to a business account.
2. When you're on your feed, in the top right corner where your main menu is, click that and head to Insights.

Now, let's delve in!
There are three main tabs - Activity, Content and Audience.

Activity

This is where you can go to see what days people are interacting with your account the most. (For me it's the weekends -  no surprise there as people have more free time on the weekends!) You can also see how many clicks your bio link has had, and how many people have chosen to email you via your Instagram profile.
At the bottom it splits into Discovery, where you can see your Reach and Impressions
Reach = how many unique accounts have discovered one of your posts.
Impressions = number of times that the post has been seen.

These don't really matter too much to me, but obviously the bigger the reach, the more opportunity to get new followers!
You can increase your reach by tagging people (but only relevant accounts, don't just tag random book accounts because it's spammy and annoying. Find feature accounts to tag e.g.@Bookishfeatures.) 
You can also increase your reach by using relevant hashtags. e.g #Bookishfeatures

Audience

This is where you can see who is following you.
My audience breaks down as being 22% US, and 12% UK as the main bulk. They are largely aged 18-24, 87% female and most are online at 6pm.

This tells me several things.
Firstly, posting books that are more popular in the UK and US will probably do better, as people tend to like photographs with books they recognise. Secondly, my girly filters and stickers are fine, because most of my audience is female so I don't need to worry about turning them off. Lastly, I should be posting around 5/6pm every night, because then more people will be logging on and will hopefully see my post.

It's important to know who is following you to know how you can target them and give them content they will like.

Content

My favourite part! This is super customisable but basically you can see which are your best-performing posts. This week I had a particularly strong post, so we can dissect that further. It's reach is 59, 235, which means that almost 60k people who didn't already follow me, saw it. it's also almost 6x higher than my second top-performer.
So the big question is why?



If I click onto the photo it gives me two options underneath the image and above the caption - 'Promote' or 'View Insights'.
If I click to view insights I can see that alongside 8.4k likes, 113 comments and 1.3k saves, it was SHARED 285 times.
Compared to all my other photos, this is a huge number.
So I can safely assume that the reason it got such great reach is because it was shared so many times, and that obviously helped with the engagements.

Why did people share it? This isn't the best photo I've taken by any means - it was actually a filler photo I took for when I had no other content. It was in bad lighting in Waterstones, but I thought the idea was cute. Apparently, so did my followers! The only reason I can think for the high amount of shares is that people were sending it to their friends saying what a great idea it was, and how they'd love to try something like that.



Bottom line is that my audience
a) love to share with their friends when they see cool things
b) care about ideas behind photographs more than quality.

So my key learnings:
I  know when is best to post, who is seeing my posts, and how to encourage shares. Meaningful and fun content will do well on my channel. My followers seem to like a pretty cover more than an open book. 'Trending books' alwasy perform well (TATBILB, Eleanor & Park, Harry Potter). People don't mind a cluttered aesthetic, they seem to do better than my 'cleaner' shots.

Have a go at dissecting your own Insights and let me know how you get on!

Love,
C x

Book Review: The Selection by Kiera Cass

Hello Readers & Friends,

I have just this very moment finished reading The Selection by Kiera Cass. I had seen a lot of hype about this book as a 'guilty trash' series on Bookstagram. You know what I mean - not great YA like Leigh Bardugo but not terrible YA like those airport chick-lits you find.

SO, I have a very mixed review. I went from a 2 star rating in the first few chapters, to a three star around half-way, to a four star by the end?! (Explanation on how I give my ratings here.)

Let's start with what wasn't so great.

- It's more on the young side of YA than the adult side. America seems very childish and the dialogue is borderline boring, the characters very 2D and stereotypical. (The sweet best friend, the mean bitch, the devoted maids etc.) Someone on Bookstagram told me they put the book down after the first 3 chapters and I'd urge them to go back - I didn't like the first few chapters either but it changes quite quickly.

- It's painfully predictable. I kept waiting for a twist that never came. But then, I suppose that's the thing with guilty-pleasure reads. You know what you're in for and that's why you're guilty for reading it - there's nothing complex or intellectual about it. You're reading for pure enjoyment.

- It's basically a more boring rip-off of The Hunger Games. Young people pit against each other in a competition, large-scale broadcasting of the competition, tactical public performances etc etc. Complete with cute little sister that the protagonist must protect at all costs.

- At the start in particular, America is very boring. She's just all about being noble and in love and there's no oomph to her character. Also the name America makes me cringe so hard.

- The world-building is confusing. The history classes are a nice touch to try and help explain, but if this is set in the future, why is it so old-fashioned and technologically behind? That they don't even have phones? And that they seem to believe that men must provide for their woman? It has undone all the liberal and democratic work that our world is working towards, but is meant to be set in the near future? It seems strange and backwards. There's not nearly enough 'showing' descriptions rather than 'telling' either.

- The use of every single annoying YA trope that exists. They have the token mean girl, the segregative society caste system, the love triangle, the confidante best friend, the 'not-like-other-girls' protagonist, the government rebellions... it's like the writer took the best part of all the most popular YA dystopian series of our era and smushed them together to make a kind of crappier, girlier version with less death and more kissing.

- There's literally no diversity at all. No LGBT, no colour, no nada.



OKAY. Deep breath. I know I made it sound terrible. But by half-way, I was hooked. Here's what I did like:

- It was so easy to read. Painfully easy. It was quick, required no thinking, no nothing. Just good, honest enjoyment of the storyline.

- I really, genuinely like America and Maxon's relationship. I'm totally rooting for them! It's genuine, it's been built on a really transparent and honest foundation and they complement each other really well. Aspen is an asshole who only cares about being the man of the household and I can't really be arsed with his unfeminist ways and his reckless behaviour.

- I like the mystery behind this secret object that the rebels are searching for.

- I love the friendship America builds with Anne, Mary and Lucy.

- I like the guilty snog scenes.

- I like the way exactly what I expect to happens, happens, but it still is written in an entertaining enough way that I want to keep turning the page. It's like Scooby Doo. You know at the end the bad guy will get caught, take the mask off and say 'I would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids', but it's still nice watching the journey to get to that point. That's how I felt with this book, I genuinely enjoyed taking in every scene and the journey getting me from A to the ever-so predictable B.


To conclude, this book wasn't picked up by myself because I thought it was going to be a masterpiece, like Six of Crows. Yes, I would love it if suddenly we found out that Maxen was gay, or that the maids were plotting to ruin America, or that Marlee gets the Prince in the end. But that would go against it's nature as a 'fluffy' YA read.  I picked it up because I knew it was going to be a fun, lighthearted, guilty-pleasure read and that's exactly what Cass delivered. In fact, I can't wait to continue reading the rest of the series (come onnnn Payday!) because even though I already know how the next couple of books will (probably) go and how the series will (probably) end, I'm enjoying the journey there.

Have you read The Selection? What did you think?

Love, C x

Book Review: The Wicked King by Holly Black

Hello Readers & Friends,

I finished The Wicked King last night and... just need to take a little minute.

What. an. emotional. ROLLERCOASTER.

Okay, so at first I wasn't really digging it. I think what I enjoyed the most about The Cruel Prince was Jude's outsider status, the way she was always fighting to fit in and the kind of relatable way of life she led what with school and the bullying etc. This book, with her now in the palace and right-hand to the King, I lost my interest quite a lot. In fact, for the first half of the book I really wasn't enjoying it in comparision to the first. Not enough to put it down, of course. I still would have given it 3 stars. (Find out how I rate my books here.)

But by the time it finished, I was back on a 4/5 star basis. Let's chat about it.

**SPOILERS ABOUT TO DROP **

- The dark, disturbing world that I loved so much from the first book very much continued in this sequel. Perhaps even more so. Certain phrases describing the folk's reactions and attitude even gave me shivers.

- There is constant tension and strange deceptions happening between characters, which keeps the plot running smoothly and the reader constantly on their toes.

- There are some things I don't really care about either way. E.G The Bomb and The Roach's almost-relationship.

- I know a lot of people really love Jude, but I'm neither here nor there with her. I just don't really care that much. She's a bit nothing to me.

- I LOATHE Taryn. Like I have never hated a character so much. I hated her in the first book, I thought what she did to Jude was despicable and disgustingly unforgivable. And then the end of this book?! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. SHAME ON JUDE. I hope someone kills Taryn in the next book she's a two-faced little social climber.

- Her prose and descriptions are beautiful. She makes me want to drink every scene in.

- I know I'm probably in a minority, but I really don't like the Jude Cardan romance. I think it's really unhealthy and toxic and volatile. Cardan doesn't just betray her in the end, he's also so cruel about it and I think no amount of make-out scenes or moments where he begins to soften and become more empathetic detracts from his core personality, which is nasty, fickle and selfish.

The end really blew me apart. I love an ending that leaves me thinking about it for ages after, and the injustice Jude faced just really boiled my blood. I hated Taryn, I hated Cardan and I just wanted her to sack off all of Faerie and live with Viv.

I never understood why she clung so desperately to this world where everyone has either tried to break her, betrayed her or belittled her. Why she wanted to fit in so much rather than just move away and reinvent the life she wanted? Viv and Oak are the only family worth having, and yet she never wanted to be with them. I know it was supposedly to protect Oak, but was it really? She could have done that from the mortal world. She has a stepfather who murdered her parents, a stepmother who doesn't care about her, and a sister who is constantly abandoning and betraying her. I think her being in the mortal world is the best thing for her. It's not only where she belongs, but where she could build a happy life for herself if she just gave it a go.

I'll be interested to see where the next book in the series takes her.
I gave the book 4 stars on GoodReads as my final review.

  Img Src
Here are some of my favourite quotes:

“Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”  

“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.” 

“Kill him before he makes you love him.”  

“It occurs to me that maybe desire isn't something overindulging helps. Maybe it is not unlike mithridatism; maybe I took a killing dose when I should have been poisoning myself slowly, one kiss at a time.” 

 “A king is a living symbol, a beating heart, a star upon which Elfhame's future is written. Surely you have noticed that since his reign began, the isles are different. Storms come in faster. Colors are a bit more vivid, smells are sharper.... When he becomes drunk, his subjects becomes tipsy without knowing why. When his blood falls, things grow.” 

I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear. 


What did you think of it?
C x

Ep06 Plots & Shots: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hello Readers, Friends & Listeners,

This Monday our episode covers The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

A quick discussion on
1. The Peeta bread scenes
2. Katniss's personality (or lack thereof)
3. How we would survive The Games
4. Clove

As always, swearing, rambling, unpopular opinions and no professionalism.

Love,
C x

How I Rate My Reads : GoodReads

Hello Readers & Friends,

I wanted to do a quick little post on how I rate my reads, how I give stars out on GoodReads etc so we're all on the same page when reading my book reviews.
This is the general jist for me:

* Could not read or get around style of writing/ shit storyline,  DNF
** Really didn't like, could rant about, would not recommend, dissapointed, likely DNF
*** Was a fine read, will probably have forgotten about it within 6 months but passed time nicely
**** Really enjoyed, looked forward to reading every day, would recommend
***** Could not put down, thought about for ages after, into the fandom and would re-read



How do you rate your reads?

Love,
C x

Review - She Lies In Wait by Gytha Lodge

Hello Readers & Friends,

I was very kindly gifted a copy of She Lies in Wait by Penguin, written by Gytha Lodge, and wanted to review it as I've just finished it this morning.

I really enjoyed it! I enjoy thrillers anyway, but this was a classic 'whodunnit' story about a body of a girl discovered 30 years after she went missing on a camping trip.
I will admit - I guessed the murderer right at the start! I don't know how but I did, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying the book and page-turning constantly to find out whether or not my guess was right.

So we have seven kids who go out on a camping trip.

Aurora - The youngest, the most naive, who is 14 and goes missing. Her body is found 30 years later.
Topaz - Her older sister, who is a bit of a slaggy maggy and doesn't want her younger sister cramping her style.
Connor - Who is in love with Topaz and eventually marries her.
Brett - Who is older, 18, an athlete, invited by Topaz because he is her current crush. He will eventually become the glue for the group who holds them all together.
Benner - Who orchastrates the camping and is dabbling with a heavy load of drugs at the time.
Coralie - Who is Topaz's shadow, a desperate wannabe in the group.
Jojo - The wild one, the fun one who is desperately loyal and brave.

The book is set in a way that we spend half the time following DC Sheens as he and his team try to uncover what happened through a series of exciting interviews with the six, plus some other witnesses. The other half of the book is told from Aurora's point of view - flashbacks of the night and the story of what happened to her. It all cumulates to a huge and dramatic ending with several unexpected twists and turns.

It's action, action, action from the start. I love that even the detective chapters (which are, naturally, a little more boring than the flashbacks) are so intriguing. The friends are all lying, contradicting each other and we are constantly trying to work out why. Who are they covering for and what are they hiding? How much do they all know? Do any of them really know what happened?
Then there's the pervert teacher who happened to be camping near them that same weekend... But if it's him, why are the kids lying? What else could they be covering?

It honestly was great. I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a crime thriller and gave it 4 stars on GoodReads.

Love,
C x

Reveiw - She Lies In Wait by Gytha Lodge

Hello Readers & Friends,

I was very kindly gifted a copy of She Lies in Wait by Penguin, written by Gytha Lodge, and wanted to review it as I've just finished it this morning.

I really enjoyed it! I enjoy thrillers anyway, but this was a classic 'whodunnit' story about a body of a girl discovered 30 years after she went missing on a camping trip.
I will admit - I guessed the murderer right at the start! I don't know how but I did, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying the book and page-turning constantly to find out whether or not my guess was right.

So we have seven kids who go out on a camping trip.

Aurora - The youngest, the most naive, who is 14 and goes missing. Her body is found 30 years later.
Topaz - Her older sister, who is a bit of a slaggy maggy and doesn't want her younger sister cramping her style.
Connor - Who is in love with Topaz and eventually marries her.
Brett - Who is older, 18, an athlete, invited by Topaz because he is her current crush. He will eventually become the glue for the group who holds them all together.
Benner - Who orchastrates the camping and is dabbling with a heavy load of drugs at the time.
Coralie - Who is Topaz's shadow, a desperate wannabe in the group.
Jojo - The wild one, the fun one who is desperately loyal and brave.

The book is set in a way that we spend half the time following DC Sheens as he and his team try to uncover what happened through a series of exciting interviews with the six, plus some other witnesses. The other half of the book is told from Aurora's point of view - flashbacks of the night and the story of what happened to her. It all cumulates to a huge and dramatic ending with several unexpected twists and turns.

It's action, action, action from the start. I love that even the detective chapters (which are, naturally, a little more boring than the flashbacks) are so intriguing. The friends are all lying, contradicting each other and we are constantly trying to work out why. Who are they covering for and what are they hiding? How much do they all know? Do any of them really know what happened?
Then there's the pervert teacher who happened to be camping near them that same weekend... But if it's him, why are the kids lying? What else could they be covering?

It honestly was great. I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a crime thriller and gave it 4 stars on GoodReads.

Love,
C x

Ep05 Plots & Shots: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Hello Readers, Friends & Listeners,

This week is, in my opinion, one of the best weeks for our podcast. We're really getting into the groove of things as we talk about Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Topics covered include:
- 80s references
- Corrupt governments
- Whether Ernest is hot
- Catfishing
- The film adaptation

As always, swearing, laughing, drinking, rambling and 0 professionalism. We hope you enjoy it and tune in next Monday, where we will be chatting about Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games.

See you then!

Love,
C x