A Girl Can Dream book review

A Girl Can Dream follows Hazel who has gone on holiday with her brother and best friend to Venice after getting out of a bad relationship with an older boyfriend to celebrate becoming herself again. Until it seems like Venice isn’t all it seems and more could be going on than what meets the eye.

I’m not so sure about this book, I was confused for much of it as we jumped timelines frequently and a lot was going on in our ‘current’ timeline. I understand why it was written the way it was and how many could love it but I don’t think it worked for me. I didn’t understand what was happening in Venice and where the story was trying to go. I didn’t feel invested until the last 100 pages and couldn’t really care about where the story was going, nor was I particularly invested in Hazel’s overall story.

Saying this I do understand what message was trying to be told by Emily Barr and I do think it was done in a very powerful way. Books like this share powerful messages and I think they are important but I do think it’s important to share them in many different ways as not every way of telling the story works for everyone. The way that the past section of the story was also done in a really interesting way, how at times Hazel from the present was telling the story, sharing things that you only know when looking back.

There were many characters that I enjoyed reading about including Enzo and Phoebe who Hazel goes to Venice with. I found them interesting people and supported many of their actions, understood what they did and why, along with this I found Hazel an interesting character but I wouldn’t say I loved any characters in the way that I often do when reading. On the other hand there were many characters who I felt indifferent towards or was not a fan of, not many characters have stuck with me and I understood their actions but I didn’t care particularly for them.

Overall this was easily a 3 star read that I understood why it was written in the way it was, and found to be an important book that I could understand why others like but just don’t think was for me. I may recommend this in the future to others however I think I have read books with similar messages before that I preferred and would more readily recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Comments

The Match book review

Back in April I was recommended my first Sarah Adams book and really enjoyed it however it wasn’t my favourite type of romance book so when I saw this one had been rereleased and was 99p on Kindle I knew that I needed to read it. The Match follows Evie who works for a company that trains service dogs to help people with all sorts of disabilities after her life was changed when she got a service dog to help with her epilepsy and when she meets Jacob when trying to convince him how much a service dog would help his daughter she begins to fall for him and his small family. This was such a light brilliant romance that I just wanted to read and continue to be immersed in the story for as long as I could. I loved all of our major characters particularly Evie, Jacob and Sam (Jacob's daughter). Sam just added the best things to the story and the romance going on between Evie and Jacob. She was also a brilliant character on her own that you really felt for and you just underst...

Daughter of the Pirate King book review

I was expecting to enjoy this book but nowhere near as much as I did and I really wished I could have given it five stars but it was just slightly off of the mark. Daughter of the Pirate King is the first book in a duology which follows Alosa who is the well-trained seventeen year old pirate daughter of the Pirate King himself, on a mission to find part of an ancient secret map on an enemy pirates ship. This is possibly the first pirate fantasy I’ve ever read, but I loved it and need to read more because there were so many fantastic elements in it that I want to read more. I also now want to read all of Tricia Levenseller’s backlist because of how stunning this book was and I want to see more of it continued in her other books, also the UK covers are absolutely stunning and I really want to own them all! There were twists in this book I was not expecting, characters I fell in love with and moments that made me really laugh. Alosa knew what she wanted and how to ...

The Eternal Ones book review

I may be posting this a month after I promised I would on my bookstagram but better late than never. If you want to see more of my immediate thoughts on this conclusion to a series I have been reading for years my booksta post is here . The Eternal Ones is the final book in the YA fantasy Deathless series by Namina Forna which follows Deka as she discovers more about the world and who she is. We follow on quickly after The Merciless Ones ended with no major plot points happening in between. As with the previous two books, there are many content warnings that come with the story, it doesn’t have any new strong ones so if you have read and been fine with the previous two you should be fine but if you are new to the series then I would recommend checking them out. Throughout the books we continue to follow Deka’s POV which works really well for the story as we discover so much and being in Deka’s head means we are kept in the know nd see how things and discoveries unrav...

Eilidh Reads

Search This Blog