KJK Reads

Rating: 3 Stars Themes: Sci-Fi, Short Stories Thoughts: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This is a great collection of well thought out short stories of varying lengths. The AI moral conflict stories were interesting as it’s not something I’ve thought about too much before. Most of them seemed to follow a similar world such as the Kami being in more than one story. The ones nearer the end that had a WW2 twist were awesome, blending together the history I’m more familiar with the sci-fi twist.  Favourite Quote: "Art inspires change. That’s why I write." With thanks to Interstella Flight Press and Netgalley for my advanced digital copy of this book.

Rating: 3 Stars Themes: Poetry Thoughts: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This collection is mixed for me, some of the poems were really good and all were definitely emotive but I think so many poems on the Hamas attack and subsequent war which is highly politically charged a little difficult to tackle. Favourite Quote: "What good is it to open my heart when in the end, you will stab it in the back?" With thanks to Netgalley for my advanced digital copy of this book.

Rating: 2 Stars Themes: Crime, Short Stories Thoughts: I’m really not sure what I think of this story. Some bits of it were great like exploring the realistic backgrounds for some people in prison and the ending was happy and sweet. But I struggled to believe Colin’s miraculous recovery and the birth being bang on the due date which I have never seen happen before. I also noticed there were a lot of ands, sometimes more than one in a sentence and some for every sentence in a paragraph.  Favourite Quote: "As Colin went on listening, he thought it was no wonder that Barry didn’t want to leave the prison. After such a childhood, life inside was better."

Rating: 4 Stars Themes: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Feminism Thoughts: This is a great short book and I definitely think I need to seek out the full version of this book. Caitlin infuses a memoir on her growing up through the 80s and 90s with reflections from modern day, especially with contemporary views on women. It also tackles issues such as being childfree, abortions, misunderstanding feminism and difficult births well in the short extract.  Favourite Quote: "A whole generation confuse ‘feminism’ with ‘anything to do with women’."

Rating: 2 Stars Themes: Short Stories, Romance, Young Adult, Contemporary Thoughts: I picked this one up from the world book day selection thinking it’s a good way to figure out if I can get into the series and the characters and I’m quite glad I did. I really couldn’t get along with Elle’s personality and despite her acknowledging the issues with her thinking this way (especially around Amanda) it still didn’t make me like her any more. However, I did think the idea of a road trip and Lee were sweet, especially him making sure that Elle could get to see the statue of liberty despite the traffic and time constraints.  Favourite Quote: "It turned out road trips weren’t exactly glamorous."

Rating: 5 Stars Themes: Memoir, Mental Health, Non-Fiction, Psychiatry, Humour  Thoughts: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This book is an amazing read and has given me a much deeper insight into the kind of professional world I hope to be joining (mental health). The first consultant hinting there must be something wrong to want to work there made me laugh as it’s something we used to joke about in my course. Benji shows us what it's like to go from a new graduate right through to his consultancy training. I appreciated that he didn’t shy away from his own experiences of burnout and mental health suffering as more books like this help to contribute to de-stigmatisation of mental ill health. I’m glad we got to get one or two pieces of some sort of closure but I understand that Benji himself didn’t get to complete the process of any of his patients being moved regularly so it makes sense we don’t always find out if his patients ar...

Rating: Stars  Themes: Horror, Supernatural Thriller, Short Stories Thoughts: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This is the second installment in the Eerie Acadia series and follows a similar format to the first tackling elements of mental health and fear one at a time for the character. This time we meet an adult with more grown up worries and looking for help wherever she can. The therapist definitely gave me eerie vibes from the off and I think was well written and the ending felt sweet and hopeful after everything.  Favourite Quote: "For the next couple of weeks, I found that anxiety was no longer something I felt inclined to claim as 'mine.' I stopped saying 'my anxiety and referred to the condition simply as anxiety, giving it less personalization and removing it from my identity. I realised now it was not a part of who I was. It was a part of being human, but it was not a part of my authentic self." With t...