Aloha and happy new year to you all! Bringing you my reviews of the books I read in November and December - unfortunately did not get as much read as I wanted to due to The Snowman being the longest and most boring book in the world to get through... but we'll get to that!

First up was Pew, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Click on the book titles for aff links to purchase.

1. Pew - Catherine Lacey

This story is set in a small unnamed town in the American South, where churchgoers arrive to a service to find a person asleep on one of the church pews. The person has no clear gender, race and refuses to speak. One local family decides to take the stranger in and gives them the nickname Pew. 

The town is in preparation for a strange sort of Forgiveness Festival, very cult-like, which causes a strange atmosphere in the town, almost a free for all as everything will be forgiven at the festival. During the week, Pew is shuttled from one household to the next, as the seemingly well-meaning people of the town give their two cents on Pew's identity and intentions, while many also confess their secrets, as Pew doesn't speak, just listens.

Pew experiences brief flashbacks from time to time about where he might have come from, but ultimate has no real idea either. As the week goes on, the townspeoples' kindness turns to suspicion as the Forgiveness Festival comes closer, as Pew finds a friend in one of the children in the area, the only person to whom he will speak.

This was a weird little book but I really enjoyed it! Would definitely recommend - an easy and short read for when you don't feel like launching into a giant book.

2. Sea State - Tabitha Lasley

So this has been on my TBR list for a couple of years now, and I was so excited when I finally got my hands on it. Unfortunately, it was just not for me.

This is a memoir from journalist/writer Tabitha Lasley, who writes it in her midthirties, newly single from a terrible relationship, she decides to quit her job at a London magazine and move her entire life to Aberdeen, Scotland, to pursue a book idea about the men who work on oil rigs and what they are like when there are no women around.

Naturally, the most obvious issue is there is a woman around - her - so it's not a true representation of what the men are truly like on the rigs with no women, but I digress.

Life on the rigs or "off-shore" almost becomes a metaphor for the double lives some of these men lead, namely Caden, a married rig worker with whom she begins a precarious relationship.

I just found the concept of this book to be a bit vague and random, and as mentioned, the fact that the author - a woman - was present and interviewing the men and living among them, it kind of defeated the purpose of seeing what men were like "without women around."

Not my fave.

3. The Snowman - Jo Nesbo

Ok this one I did not enjoy. It was SO long and rambling, it was meant to be a thriller/page-turner but it took me so long to get through because I was honestly bored out of my mind until the last 100 pages.

I love me a crime novel/thriller but this was absolutely not that.

The story begins in November in Oslo, after the first snowfall of the year. A young boy wakes to discover his mother isn't in the house. When he ventures outside to look for her, he only finds his mother's pink scarf wrapped around a snowman in the front yard that appeared out of nowhere. Investigations uncover that numerous women have gone missing over the years, all on the day of the first snowfall, all with a snowman left behind, and none of their bodies have every been found.

Harry Hole is the lead investigator on the case, determined to find Oslo's serial killer. 

I found the book to have waaaay too many characters and sub plots - I couldn't keep track of who was who and why we were being introduced to such random characters that had nothing to do with the main plot. The story appears to find the killer FOUR different times before they actually have the right person, which was so long-winded to read through.

The last 100 pages were the only part that was actually what I would call a "thriller," when the chase for the actual killer begins, and is quite dramatically gruesome compared to the vanilla theme of the rest of the book. Also the last 100 pages are definitely not a valid reason to schlep through the first 400.

Not a fan.

... and that was it! Mainly because it took me a LITERAL month to get through the final book.

Anyway. I have already finished my first book of January which I really enjoyed, and have started my next one which is definitely promising (40 pages in) so I have much higher hopes for our next book round up!

Let me know what you have been reading over Christmas/New Year and what you have been loving.

Thank you for reading as always,

S ✗