So excited for this one! I've been recommended it so many times in the last couple of weeks: all of my friends of Goodreads seem to have loved it! Treating myself with a couple of hours in Waterstones, drinking tea and reading the afternoon away. (Also, I made my tea too milky and I'm quite distraught)

I can understand the comparisons to Dead Poets Society, Heathers and The Secret History - this book is dark and twisted, transforming an average school girl investigation. At first, I thought it was simplistic and predictable, but Miller's writing quickly proved me wrong: suspicions and assumptions are unravelled in a sophisticated and sinister plot. Not usually a fan of multiple narratives, but such an addictive and unique read.

Such a charming book! Reminds me of 'The Gracekeepers' with its romance, subtle magic, and focus on the beauty of nature. It's the perfect easy read for winter. Perhaps not ground-breaking, but certainly a very pleasant way to spend a day.

Okay, I'm a little behind the rest of Listy with this one... after all your recommendations for this book and my essays for the term written and submitted, it was high time I sunk my teeth into bad boy, and am I glad that I did! It took me a while to get in to but it was worth the wait: an intelligent and stimulating book, perfectly split between love story, action thriller, and sci-fi. It's a book that I've recommended endlessly since finishing!

Finally it's Reading Week! I've survived six years of second year at uni, which has proved harder than the last, and after a train journey with Egger's newest novel as my company I'm in a tiny cottage in Cornwall with my family for a week of long windy beach walks and seaside villages - and reading of course! So glad to have started the week with this beauty: it's a wild and raw story, which is exactly what I need at the moment. A stunning tale.

Day one of second year and I am so feeling my reading list already! Hopefully this year there won't seem like so much of a divide between reading for pleasure and reading for uni. This one is for a module called 'Desire and Power in pre-1700s Literature' and I'm super pumped for it. Elizabethan folklore is kind of my guilty pleasure!

A bit of lighter reading before going back to uni. This is a vast, sprawling book; an opus of lives and complications, fame and beauty, and of love and longing. It's a world, rather than a tale. My hang up is that the book is, at times, too detailed which can lose you along the away. However, the interview with Waters at the back added a lot to what the novel tries to achieve. It's a good book, but it won't linger any longer than summer will.

It's taken me three weeks after finishing this to write the review: I felt like I need some space from its darkness in order to objectively form an opinion on it. But even without the raw emotional torture of its tale, I still dislike it. I think the author tried too hard to shock, competing against her own imagination to create something grotesque and painful. I certainly do not recommend it and I hope I can soon forget it.

My favourite type of book are those about the darkness of women, the shadow behind femininity, the craziness woven into soft dresses and long hair. This book ticked the boxes for me: I rarely buy books for recreational reading, because I'm a poor student, but I knew as soon as I read the blurb for this that it would be one I would want to own. I was right: this book is shocking and beautiful and sickening. I loved it.

On my favourite bench, in my favourite trousers, starting my pre-uni reading in my lunch break from work. Today a regular at work brought me a bottle of Prosecco as a back to uni gift! I love my job. But most importantly, I love the excitement before term starts! The books I've read for my course so far are great 📚

I love reading English at university because it means I can easily justify spending 668 on books ? Look at all these goodies! I'm so excited for my modules this year, I think they're going to be fascinating. It's only two weeks until I go back and I'm getting the pre-uni buzz again! This is my favourite time of year, I think. How are you all doing?

In fairness, this has the potential to be a good story. Unfortunately, it wasn't. I found Pulley's writing terrible (would 'twerp' or 'idiot' really have been said in 1800s England? Really?) and the pace barely readable. So far, it's the worst book I've read all summer! However, my brother read it and loved it, so I am willing to accept that this is just my own particular taste...

According to Goodreads I'm about 60% of the way through this book and wow, it's horrific. I really enjoyed reading your comments yesterday guys, and I'm glad to see that some of you have been having the same questions and reactions as me - I'm just not sure what to make of this, but I certainly don't like it! At least, not in a way I'll want to read it again or treasure it; I think it'll haunt me. I'll reply to comments once I can put it down!

I'm still very uncertain how I feel about this book (about 300 pages in) but I can definitely say that it's one of the first novels that I've ever questioned why it was written. How did the author have this tale in her head? Why did she feel like it needed to be shared with the world? I've been reading a couple of interviews with her (the one in the photo is from The Guardian) and it's just raised yet more questions!

I'm still very uncertain how I feel about this book (about 300 pages in) but I can definitely say that it's one of the first novels that I've ever questioned why it was written. How did the author have this tale in her head? Why did she feel like it needed to be shared with the world? I've been reading a couple of interviews with her (the one in the photo is from The Guardian) and it's just raised yet more questions!

I'll be updating my epic 700 page journey through A Little Life over on Twitter (same username!) if you guys want a come and watch me struggle through this heavily recommended and praised novel. Hopefully, you'll get to see me fall in love with it! But if not, at least you can have more bookish type tweets on your newsfeed, which is what everyone needs 📚

I think this book may have changed my life, and I don't say that lightly. I turn twenty in a month and, honestly, I'm having a quarter life crisis; but this book is such a comfort for a college woman, who's world is friendship and adventure and learning to find herself. Its words on sexuality - orientation, freedom, and abuse alike - would've been such a comfort to me a couple of years ago. I treasure this book for its intelligence and kindness.

#TBRtuesday these are the books I brought on holiday with me and have another two weeks to read 📚 I'm hoping to finish Commencement tonight and leave A Little Life until last - I've started it three times already but I'm determined to finish it this holiday!

"That's what parenthood was about, wasn't it? Slowly understanding your child less and less until she wasn't yours anymore but herself."

It's time! As soon as I finished YWKM, I fangirl rampaged Megan Abbot with tweets about how is my favourite author and her book is a work of art (you can see them all for yourself over on Twitter and laugh at my love for this book - I'm at the same username!). But simply put, this book is incredible and if you don't read it this summer you are missing out on something deadly and powerful and desperate and sensational. Read it now.

My favourite aesthetic for book covers is when they match my wine 🍷 #augustofpages #photobookchallenge @TheSpinecrackersBookClub

For those of you following me on Twitter or Goodreads (if you're not, you should for more bookishness - same username!) then you will know I have a big Megan Abbot love, and #YouWillKnowMe has ruled my first day of holiday in a frenzied and desperate read. God, I love this book. A proper review coming later today, but in the meantime be sure to check out my ramblings on other social media - and definitely pick up this book!

I devoured this on a two hour flight when I couldn't run away from its heartbreak and cruelty. I've been scared to read this book because Angelou deserves so much respect, but I need to learn and recognise my privilege, so - trapped in an aisle seat on a crowded flight - I opened it and braced myself. And I was left in awe of this incredible woman, with the most forgiving heart that allows love and loyalty even when she isn't shown it.

On parting from a boy I'd given my heart, I also handed him this book, and wrote the inscription "I bet you won't figure this book out as quickly as you did me". Months later, after our love had faded to friendship, he asked me why that book. What did it mean? What did it say about us? I told him it wasn't a metaphor at all, but just a really excellent mystery novel!

Such an overrated book, the type that you will immediately forget once you turn the last page. I just wanted to show off my picnic, which was infinitely more satisfying!

People are less quick to applaud you as you grow older. Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there.

I was taught that candles are like house cats - domesticated versions of something wild and dangerous.

Suburbia is too close to the county to have anything real to do and too close to the city to admit you have nothing real to do.

This book convinced me that Sloane and I should become great friends. She's honest about her flaws, witty in her story-telling, and earnest in her intentions. This is the most wonderful memoir of quizzically serendipitous moments captured in essays.