Five Favourite Secondary Characters

Five Friday Favourites is a weekly event hosted by Amanda over at Book Badger. Each week she chooses a subject and everyone is welcome to join in and answer the question. Check out this link for more information and the future subjects.

Five Favourite Secondary Characters

I love the topic this week. It’s not often secondary characters get some love, and I’m terribly guilty of this. My main focus is always on the main character(s) and the others get swept aside. When I was looking through my read books to pick out my five favourite secondary characters, it hit home that for over half the books I can’t actually remember too much about any secondary characters. I get vague impressions, but nothing in great detail, certainly not enough to class them as a favourite. In a strange way, this made it easier to choose only five! These characters immediately came to mind, and I knew I had to include them on the list.

1. Roar

Under the Never Sky trilogy by Veronica Rossi

2. Dee Black

Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

3. Finnick Odair

The Hunger Games by Susan Collins

4. Dee-Dum

Angelfall by Susan Ee

5. Alice and Jasper Cullen

Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

Roar instantly comes to mind when I think of secondary characters. I loved his character through the entire series, and if I’m honest, I think his presence overshadowed Perry and Aria a couple of times. Dee Black is another that instantly comes to mind. She’s such a bubbly character, and I missed her presence at times in the last couple of books. And Finnick. When he first appeared in the books, I wasn’t too sure what to make of him. As the story continues both in Catching Fire and in Mockingjay, he became one of my favourites from the trilogy, after Katniss and Peeta. Dee and Dum, or Dee-Dum, are twins that have made the angel’s invasion in Angelfall really benefit them. I love the banter between them and other characters, and I can’t help smiling whenever they show up in the story. And finally the series that causes so much division: Twilight. Alice and Jasper are two secondary characters that I felt could have had so much more impact on the story than they did. I was caught up in the Bella and Edward bubble when I read the series, but now, looking back, Alice and Jasper are just as memorable.

What do you think? Who are some of your favourite secondary characters?

Five Friday Favourites: Five Not-So-Favourite Fantasy Books

Five Friday Favourites is a weekly event hosted by Amanda over at Book Badger. Each week she chooses a subject and everyone is welcome to join in and answer the question. Check out this link for more information and the future subjects.

This week the topic is Five Not-So-Favourite Fantasy Books. Any sub-genres can also be included in the topic, which is a big help! My choices don’t fall into just the fantasy genre, most blend into paranormal and urban fantasy.

Five Not-So-Favourite Fantasy Books.

Something that is guaranteed to get me looking at a book in a less than favourable light is repetitiveness. This can be in several ways, but the main annoyances I have is when a book follows the plot of another book very closely, or if there is back-tracking over things that happened within a book.

Sealed with a Curse
by Cecy Robson

Carrier of the Mark
by Leigh Fallon

Four out of the five books on this list are guilty of being incredibly similar to other books or TV shows. Carrier of the Mark is a Twilight rip-off. Evermore and Finding Sky follow the same structure we see time and time again in Young Adult paranormal without bringing anything unique to the genre. Sealed with a Curse is a mish-mash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and Charmed. None of these worked for me. I can live with and overlook a little familiarity, and let's be honest with the amount of books out there it's inevitable we will come across something that seems familiar at some stage. What really gets under my skin is when it's constant throughout the book. Or what's even worse: when you can put the timelines of two books side by side, and they are virtually identical!

Evermore
by Alyson Noel

Finding Sky
by Joss Stirling

The writing in The Night Circus is absolutely beautiful, and this to me is its saving grace. But, I need more than pretty words to make me fall in love with a book. The characters were not developed as well as the world, and I remember struggling to finish reading the book. I didn’t care what happened to them, and that's the point when I begin to think it's time to give up and move on. It was such a let down.

The Night Circus
by Erin Morgenstern

Have you read any of these books and what did you think of them? Is there any books you'd include on your own non-so-favourite lists?

Five Friday Favourites, #1

Five Friday Favourites is a weekly event hosted by Amanda over at Book Badger. Each week she chooses a subject and everyone is welcome to join in and answer the question. Check out this link for more information and the future subjects. This is my first time doing this meme and I love the topic: Five Favourite Books so far in 2014. I wanted to do a similar post, and this is the perfect time to take part!

I’ve had a mixed year, with a few favourites dotted among a lot of some not so good books. It hasn’t been too hard to select this list, but it adds up to six books rather than five, so I’m tagging one on as a bonus :-)

Five Favourite Books I’ve Read in 2014 (so far)

1. Nevermore by Kelly Creagh

What can I say about this book!? I loved every page. I’m currently in the middle of writing a review, and I’m failing miserably. I can’t do it justice. The atmosphere is so dark, haunting and just beautiful. The characters are relatable and seem so real… perfect!

2. Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi

The conclusion of a trilogy is always a bitter sweet moment, especially when it’s one of your favourites. I loved every minute I spent reading each book, and I’m going to miss the characters terribly. So many series have disappointing finale books; it was such a relief that this one finished on the same awesomeness level as Under the Never Sky.

3. Ashes to Ashes by Karina Halle

Awesome characters, terrifying story, and a romantic Dex… how could this not make my favourites list?! I can't believe the series is almost over. You can sense the end is near, and that ending! What a cliff-hanger, but it'll be worth it. I hope...

4. The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan

This was my first book by Jenny Colgan and I loved it! She has successfully made me want to travel to Paris and haunt every chocolate shop I can find. And the chocolate recipes at the back of the book are fantastic too!

5. Amy and Rogers Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

This was such a sweet read, and exactly what I needed when I read it. I loved the scrap-book layout, even though it took a little while to get used to it.

Bonus: Fracture by C.J. Daugherty

I love this series, and I had to include it in the list ;) For a series I have no clue what is happening in, I'm completely hooked. I can't even pin it to a specific genre except Young Adult. And Sylvain or Carter... I can't choose!

What has been your favourite book so far this year?