Book Review: Everless (Everless #1) by Sara Holland

Book: Everless
Author: Sara Holland
Series: Book 1
Genres: YA, Fantasy 

In the land of Sempera, the rich control everything - even time. Ever since the age of alchemy and sorcery, hours, days and years have been extracted from blood and bound to iron coins. The rich live for centuries; the poor bleed themselves dry. 

Jules and her father are behind on their rent and low on hours. To stop him from draining himself to clear their debts, Jules takes a job at Everless, the grand estate of the cruel Gerling family. 

There, Jules encounters danger and temptation in the guise of the Gerling heir, Roan, who is soon to be married. But the web of secrets at Everless stretches beyond her desire, and the truths Jules must uncover will change her life for ever ... and possibly the future of time itself.- Quoted from Goodreads

My Rating: 4/5 STARS
My Review:
Everless has a really interesting story concept.  It's set in a world where time can be extracted from a person's blood and can be given to another to make them live longer whilst the former gets the same amount of time that was extracted from their blood taken off their life.  It sounds very complicated, I know, but it's easy enough to follow once it's explained in the book.  I did still find some parts confusing but the general idea was not. 

I really liked the backstory of how the time extracting part of it was created, it felt like a story within a story.
I found the storyline to be fast paced but also a bit predictable at times.

At the beginning I didn't really care for Jules (the main character) all that much.  I thought some of her decisions were stupid and silly and I found her to be a 2D sort of character but near the end of the book I started to like her more.

I mentioned before about the story being a bit predictable and I also found some of the characters to be the same.  I thought some of the characters intentions were a bit obvious from the beginning.  

A thing I really liked about Everless was the relationships between all the different characters.  The relationships between the characters felt mysterious and left me wondering right up until the end about them.  Although I did find some parts predictable there were some parts of the book that surprised me especially near the end.

Overall I liked Everless, I definitely think it's one of those books that take a while to warm up to.  And even though you can guess at some parts of the story, its fast paced plot and unique concept make it a good read.     

Top Ten Tuesday- New To Me Authors I Read In 2017

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's topic is: Top New-To-Me Authors I Read in 2017.  I picked six authors I hadn't read anything from before 2017 and put the books I read by them in the brackets.

Amanda Bouchet (A Promise of Fire)

Sara Barnard (Beautiful Broken Things)

Lexa Hillyer (Proof of Forever)

Alice Oseman (Radio Silence)

Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn trilogy)

Robin Talley (Lies We Tell Ourselves)

What New-To-You authors did you read in 2017?

My Favourite Books of 2017

It's that time of the year again where I try to narrow down my favourite books of the year from a lot of great ones I've read.  Here they are, in no particular order. 

Solanin by Inio Asano

Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices book 2) by Cassandra Clare

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Before the Devil Breaks You (The Diviners book 3) by Libba Bray

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

Magic Binds (Kate Daniels book 9) by Ilona Andrews

A Court of Wings and Ruin (ACOTAR book 3) by Sarah J Maas

They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera

There were so many other good books I read as well.  I'm excited to see what new favourite books I'll read in 2018.

What are some of your favourite books of 2017? 

December 2017 Reading Wrap Up

In December I read two books.  Here are my thoughts on them.

Breath of Fire (Kingmaker Chronicles book 2) by Amanda Bouchet - 2/5 STARS

I disliked this book a lot and that really surprised me because I really liked the first book in the series.  The main character didn't seem as strong a character as she was in the first book, in this book she seemed to be highly dependent on the love interest.  And overall I found some parts in the story annoyed me. 

Everless by Sara Holland - 4/5 STARS

I got this book in my Fairyloot (a book subscription box) for December.  It isn't published in the UK until January 4th (I think it's published January 2nd in the US) so I was excited to be able to read it early.  And to be honest I was pleasantly surprised.  I'll not say too much about it since I plan to do a full review of it but I will say this book has a really interesting concept.  

What books did you read in December?

November 2017 Reading Wrap Up

In November I read four books.  Here is a list of them and some of my thoughts on them.

The Chosen (Black Dagger Brotherhood book 15) by J.R. Ward- 4/5 STARS

I was torn between giving this book 3 or 4 stars.  I had some issues with the way this story went and how the characters behaved in it but I still found this book to be just as addicting to read as the rest of the series so I opted with a higher rating.

    

Magic Binds (Kate Daniels book 9) by Ilona Andrews - 4/5 STARS

The Kate Daniels series is a great urban fantasy series.  I love reading about Kate's adventures and her relationship with Curran.  The friendships and the dynamics between the characters in this series are fun to read.  I thought this was a great book in the series and although I'm so excited for the next book (book 10) I'm also a little saddened because it's the last book in the series.

Paper Girls Vol 3 by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang - 3/5 STARS

I really enjoyed the first two volumes in this series but I was very disappointed in this volume.  I felt like the characters were going round in circles and it seemed like the volume didn't really have a point to it so it left me feeling confused.

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo - 4/5 STARS

I really liked this collection of short stories.  I had already read a few of them before but it was nice to read them again and to read the new ones in the collection especially with the illustrations that went with them.  All of the stories were very interesting and intriguing to read.

What books did you read in November?

Top Ten Tuesday - Books On My Winter TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.  This week's topic is: Top Ten Books on My Winter TBR.  Since I haven't been reading as much as usual lately I've decided to only list five books I want to get to this winter.

Unbound by Neal Schusterman 

Ghost Gifts (Ghost Gifts book 1) by Laura Spinella

Heart of Mist (The Oremere Chronicles book 1) by Helen Scheuerer

Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson book 9) by Patricia Briggs

Archangel's Viper (Guild Hunter book 10) by Nalini Singh

What books are on your Winter TBR? 

October 2017 Wrap Up

In October I read four books.  I didn't get around to reading all the books on my Halloween tbr but I at least read some of them.

The City of Mirrors (The Passage book 3) by Justin Cronin - 4/5 STARS

I thought the first half of this book was slow and boring in parts but the second half definitely made up for it.  I loved the ending and I liked how everything was wrapped up, this is such a great trilogy.

Warcross (Warcross book 1) by Marie Lu - 4/5 STARS

I enjoyed this book especially the world of Warcross but I did find some parts of the book to be predictable.  You can find my full review of it here.

Before the Devil Breaks You (The Diviners book 3) by Libba Bray - 5/5 STARS

I love this series so much.  I love the characters, the way it is written and the plot of it. This series just keeps getting better and better and I can't wait for the next one.

The Creeper Man/ And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich - 3/5 STARS

I honestly don't know what to say about this book or how to describe it.  It was very weird, one minute I thought I knew what was going on, the next I didn't.  It was a very up and down book and I really don't know how I feel about it.

What books did you read in October?