Book Review (Twisted in a Positive Way by Chikamso C. Efobi)

This beautiful up and coming author, Chikamso Efobi grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and currently resides in the UK. Her inspirational novel, Twisted in a Positive Way, was published September 20, 2015. According to her good reads page she believes that '...everyone has something to teach you if you are willing to listen and learn.' and this story she has written shows you just how much she believes it.

The story follows a young girl through life and school as she grows up to be a kind young women. The people she meets and the places she goes all teach her little things that in return have a big impact on her life. Reading this story during a stressful time helped me look for the meaning in my own life. Due to this, I was able to see the positive side of things. I just adore books that make me have this happy feeling.

This is a delightful coming of age book, but I happen to have slightly mixed feelings about it. On one hand I loved it and on the other I feel somewhat annoyed. The main character had very positive outlook on life which I found enjoyable a different. At times, I found the writing to be a little confusing.

The bits that bother me are fairly small. There are small grammatical errors and some words were used quite frequently when she described things. I also noticed that some words and sentences were unnecessarily repeated. For example, there was a time that a plant broke out of its pot and she described it as it 'broken through its immediate environment' and one sentence later she once again describes it as 'breaking through its immediate environment'. Had this example been the only occurrence I would not have noted it, however, this was not the case. Lastly, there are times that the characters speak a different language and I wish that a translation had been included. If she didn't want to include it within the story than listing the words used at the beginning or end of the book would have been nice.

Nonetheless, ignoring these things and you have yourself a great story. I truly enjoyed it and will be buying (I read it through Kindle Unlimited) a hard copy of it to go in my home. I would recommend this book to everyone. It is my hope that anyone who reads this will feel the positive note in their own lives that I felt. 

Book Review (Marie by Ana Elise Meyer)

*This author has edited this book and fixed most if not all mistakes which I pointed out here. I now give it five stars instead of four. Regardless I still recommend it.

Ana Elise Meyer is an up and coming author that was born and raised in St Louis Missouri. Her novel Marie was published in June 2015. I am glad that I recently had the pleasure of reading it. According to her Goodreads page, she 'believes in the strong independent woman and stresses the female protagonist in her novels' and this novel proves it.

First off, I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading a book with such a strong female lead. I love that she did not put up with others BS and was not afraid to take matters into her own hands. Ana did a great job of capturing the intense action, but not making it cheesy. She also added many unexpected twists and turns making it impossible to predict the end. I am so glad I could not figure out where the book was going.

However, I am giving it four out of five. There were a couple of little inconsistencies and when I say little I mean it would not really alter the storyline to change it. Some sentences did not quite make sense. I also noticed that when describing things sometimes she repeated herself multiple times. I think it was to make a point, but frequently the same words were used. Anyway, it was all small stuff that you can easily ignore and still enjoy this action packed story. Over all, a great job and read. I am for sure going to add the next book to my ‘want to read’ list.