F L A W E D - by Cecelia Ahern

My best friend lent this book to me in preparation for a book club meeting that she wanted me to join in at the end of July. She gave it to me towards the beginning of June and assured me that I had more than enough time to finish it before the book club.

I was a bit apprehensive as I'd only just bought something like 24 books and I was planning on getting through as many of them as possible.

I picked up Flawed one Monday night to begin reading and by the end of Tuesday I was finished. 

I could NOT put the book down. 

It's set in a present day, yet somewhat dystopian world where the government has appointed a group of people called 'The Guild' to hand out punishments for those who display a lack of judgement. For your lack of judgement you get branded with an "F" on the particular part of the body that housed the lack of judgement. For an intention meant well but gone bad - your temple. For untruthful speech - your tongue. For judgement of the heart - your chest. For stealing - the palm of your right hand and for running away - the sole of your foot. 

For Celestine her life is perfect and all going according to plan. Everything is great at school, she has an amazing boyfriend and a loving family - until one day she makes a public choice that changes her life forever. 

The action is non stop as we follow Celestine in her new life as being "Flawed". Love and support flow forth from the most unlikely of characters and a mysterious boy promises to find her. I couldn't put this book down for the mere fact that I wanted to know more, more, MORE. How disappointed I was to find out that the rest of the story doesn't come out till April 2017. 

Ahern's character development leaves much to be desired & her plots are a little transparent (but maybe I'm just to used to reading mysteries). All in all it was a good read, Flawed shows that is only Human to err and that Good cannot exist without the Bad. 

I'll give it a 7 /10

THE RAGING QUIET - by Sherryl Jordan

I read this book about a month ago now and I actually really enjoyed it. It's the type of book that if you set aside a couple hours with a cup of coffee you could get through it quite easily. 

The story is set in the 15th or 16th century somewhere on the English Coast. It centers around a 16 year old girl called Marnie, who marries a Lord more than twice her age and moves away from the Estate she worked on and the village she lived in with her family her entire life. It is mostly done to save her family and we begin the story with Marnie making her way towards her home in a little fishing town called Torcurra. 

The majority of the time this book left me feeling angry due to the injustice of Marnie's life and the injustice of what it must have been like living as a poor girl in these Medieval times.

Everyone was telling you how to live your life but you. Guys wanted to sleep with you and take your virture but looked down upon you and shamed you once they'd had their way. Men ruled, said whatever they wanted to and women had to hold their tongue.

The entire situation with the ignorant villages of Torcurra had me angry as well - granted given the time they lived in anything strange or out of the ordinary would be looked upon with judgement and suspicion - I guess the same way things could be now, however there were just less people back then to question and try and explain away the "norm". Back then everyone was sheep, one went this way and the rest would follow.

One of the other characters in this book is Raven (formally Raver). He lives in Torcurra, not in a specific place really but mostly at the church. Our first meeting of him, he is being whipped in the town square to rid him of his demons. We soon learn that he is in fact deaf. When Marnie and Raven become friends, Marnie figures this out easily enough and they being to sign to each other to talk. 

There are a lot of aspects of this book that make me think really long and hard about what it would have been like to live in a time like this. Where most of the questions about the universe were yet to be asked. Where people believed more in Angels and Demons and gossip than fact. Where anything out of ordinary made you stick out like a sore thumb and you could be trialed for witchcraft all because you figured out a different means of communication. Not only that but how afraid would you have to be and how small minded to not want to think outside the square, to expand your mind. To think differently to other people. What a scary time to have existed.