September Reading

It's fair to say that I'm going through a bit of a reading phase at the moment and I just can't seem to stop.  I LOVE reading and thanks to my English Lit degree, I can quite easily get through a book a week (I remember when I used to have to get through at least three books every week for my degree!  God, that seems like forever ago! How depressing.). 

Anyway, I'm not going to lie to you right now, I love me a bit of YA (Young Adult - for those not in the know!) fiction which is why my first book of September was Requiem by Lauren Oliver.  This dystopian novel is part of the Delirium trilogy centred around a young girl called Lena who lives in a society where love is deemed a disease and when people reach a certain age, they are 'cured' of this 'affliction'.  This is a great trilogy but as much as I enjoyed the first two books, I felt that Requiem was not quite as superior, mostly due to its slightly lacklustre ending.  For me, I like an ending that ties everything up which I didn't really get from Requiem, despite that, I still think that it's an excellent trilogy - it's addictive, exciting and really well written so I would most definitely recommend it, plus it's a great way for newbies to dip their toes into the pools of YA fiction!

The second book that I moved on to was Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson.  You may recognise the title of this book due to the fact that a film version of it has just been released which stars Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth (*cough* Mr Darcy) and Mark Strong (click here to check out the trailer).  My mum recommended this book to me and it has to be one of the best books that I've read in a very long time!  This is one of those books that you just can't put down and find yourself awake until 3am still reading it and wanting to find out what happens next.  Without ruining the plot too much, this book is about a woman who is an amnesiac and wakes up everyday with no memory of her life after her teens/early twenties and sometimes no memory after her childhood.  I don't really want to say too much about the plot because the less you know, the better when it comes to this novel.  I'm incredibly excited about seeing the film and how the story translates onto the big screen as I think that it has the ability to be just as effective in the movie medium as it is in the written word.

The third book of my September reading was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  This was, yet again, another recommendation from my mum (it's true what they say, mums really do know best, just don't tell my mum that I admitted that, ok?) and I was determined to read it before the movie came out (which I believe is the beginning of October. Click here if you want to watch the trailer).  Without revealing any spoilers, the only information about this book that can be given is that it's about a wife who goes missing so I guess the title's pretty self-explanatory really - there is a girl who has gone.  Gone Girl is full of twists and turns and these twists and turns actually made me gasp out loud on countless occasions (luckily, none of my gasps occurred in public otherwise I would have got a few concerned looks!).  It's also quite a disturbing story but it's one that is such an addictive read.  I wasn't a massive fan of the ending as it was a bit too ambiguous for my liking but I'll be interested to see if the film version will change it up a bit.  If you like psychological plots with twists throughout then this is a great book to go for!

Finally, the current book that I'm reading at the moment is Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff (such a great name!).  Zadoff's novel is another one from the YA fiction genre but it was not one that I'd heard of until I stumbled upon it hanging out on my bookshelf and I then remembered that I had been given it as part of a 'thank you' gift bag from Bliss Magazine when I did a work experience placement there.  I'm not too sure how I feel about this book at the moment as it's what I consider very clichéd YA fiction and what I mean by that is, that it involves the standard guy meets girl storyline and it just seems very easy so far to correctly guess what's going to happen next.  I'm going to stick it out with Boy Nobody though as I always have to finish a book, no matter how bad it is, plus I do believe that some novels do take a little while to get into and I'm all about equal opportunity when it comes to books and reading!

So that's my September reading so far - have you read any of these or got any recommendations for a good September read?  Drop me a comment below!