#BiteSizeSaturday goes #bookhangover

Hi and welcome to #BiteSizeSaturday!

As the end of the year draws ever closer, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about two fantastic reads I haven’t talked about yet but probably should as they will make an appearance on my Best of 2020 list…

These two couldn’t be more different in genre and appearance if they tried but they do have the most important bookish trait in common: in their own way they both made me feel ALL the feels and they both left me with a HUGE book hangover!

The first one is We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker. I picked this up because of Eva @ Noveldeelights… Can’t thank her enough, I got a new favourite author out of it! This was my first Whitaker novel and it took me a moment to get used to the writing style, but before long I was glued to my e-reader, desperate to find out what other tragedies might befall thirteen-year-old Duchess Day Radley and her little brother Robin. She has a big mouth, calling herself an outlaw, but it’s soon crystal clear that she’s just a fragile girl trying to survive and trying her best for her brother. Intricately woven but in a deceivingly simple manner, We Begin at the End is a page-turner that takes the best of crime fiction and contemporary fiction and drama and even dark comedy and spins a tale that is guaranteed to get under your skin. I read this early September, I still can’t think about this novel without becoming emotional. I dare you to read this and not fall in love with Duchess Day Radley, outlaw. Highly recommended!

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune is not even the type of book I usually go for but it got to me in ways I could never have foreseen.
Linus Baker, a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, is sent on a highly classified mission to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six extraordinary children reside. Everything about Linus is proper: he is properly adhering to the Rules, his clothes are proper, his demeanour is proper and so is his mindset. In other words: he is in no way prepared for these children and their chaos: a gnome who loves her garden and threatens to kill him with her shovel if he doesn’t mind her flower beds, a forest sprite who can coax flowers out of nowhere, a wyvern who collects shiny objects like an overgrown magpie, an as yet unidentified blob who dreams of becoming a bellhop, a boy who turns into a Pomeranian when he catches a fright, and the Antichrist. And that’s not even mentioning their caretaker who gets under Linus’ skin in a whole other way.
The House in the Cerulean Sea is quirky, funny and imaginative, it made me laugh and it made me cry. Taken at face value it’s just an entertaining story but just underneath it speaks of xenophobia, of self-respect, of open mindedness and closed mindedness, of evolving as a person. It left me with a huge book hangover and I can’t wait to read it again. Highly recommended. 

Thanks for joining me today! Have you read (one of) these? Did you have a book hangover too? What books gave you a book hangover? Let me know below!