Top Ten: Fictional Places

I've been wanting to make this post for a while, as the fantasy, fairytale and science fiction genres are some of my absolute favourites, and I love the imagination involved in creating the places that they feature. Before I give you my top ten though, I should just note that these are in no particular order because I am far too indecisive for that. Comment below with some of your favourite fictional places!

Hogwarts* from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The narrow path had opened suddenly on to the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling

The Discworld from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world.
- The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the end of the universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is (will haven be) enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the universe.
This is, many would say, impossible.
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams

Elsa's Ice Palace from Disney's Frozen
My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiralling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back,
The past is in the past!
- Let It Go, as sung by Indina Menzel in Disney's Frozen

The Library from Doctor Who
It's a world. Literally. A World. The whole core of the planet is the index computer. Biggest hard drive ever. And up here, every book ever written. Whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python's Big Red Book. Brand new editions, specially printed. We're near the equator so... This must be biographies! I love biographies!
- Silence in the Library, Steven Moffat

Neverland from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Of all the delectable islands, the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day, with the chairs and tablecloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night-lights.
- Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

Narnia from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
And that is the very end of the adventures of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was right, it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis

Wonderland from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
We're all mad here.
- Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Halloween Town from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
I'm a master of fright, and a demon of light
And I'll scare you right out of your pants
To a guy in Kentucky, I'm Mister Unlucky
And I'm known throughout England and France
And since I am dead, I can take off my head
To recite Shakespearean quotations
No animal or man can scream like I can
With the fury of my recitations!
- Jack's Lament, as sung by Danny Elfman in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas

Stormhold from Stardust
To the new King of Stormhold. Whichever of you fine fellows it might be.
- Stardust, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman

*Don't worry, I know that Hogwarts is definitely real.

Review: Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Name: Allegiant
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Harper Collins
Date published: 2014
Rating: 4/5
Spoiler warning: Moderate

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered - fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she's known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.

But Tris's new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningliess. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend to complexities of human nature - and of herself - while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.

- From Goodreads.

I really liked the plot of Allegiant, in fact I adored it, with all its different layers of secrets and plans and discoveries of what was on the outside of the city. However, I didn't like the characters as much as I liked the plot. I liked Tris, of course, but I don't think she's one of my favourite characters, and I think I liked some of the side characters more than I liked the two main ones, Tris and Tobias. I definitely didn't like like Tobias as much as I liked Tris, and so I couldn't relate to her affection for him as much as I should have been able to.
There were other emotions and actions of the characters that I couldn't understand, like jealousy. I always find jealousy very annoying in characters because it usually feels so stupid (I could probably be more eloquent about that, but I think it's just one of those things that annoys me too much to be eloquent about). It implies distrust and possessiveness and I very much dislike those two things.
The dual viewpoint felt strange at the beginning of the book as the other two books in the series didn't use it, but I suppose that, although it took some getting used to, it made sense towards the end. Speaking of which, I think I'm glad it ended the way it did, with society building itself towards something better (although perhaps I'm not so happy with certain character deaths, there were some pretty upsetting ones, but I won't say anymore about that because this is entering dangerous spoiler territory).
A very good point about this book was that I didn't know what was going to happen and I couldn't predict what was going to happen either which kept it exciting and made the ending more of a shock (and that's definitely where I'll end this because I am on the brink of spoiling everything and I don't want to do that).

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Name: Insurgent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Harper Collins
Date published: 2012
Rating: 4/5

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

- From Goodreads.

Despite any flaws Insurgent may have had (and it really didn't have many), I found I couldn't stop reading it. I just kept turning the pages because I was so interested in it. It was pretty addictive and I ended up reading it all in one day.
I thought it was a good sequel to and a good continuation of the first book in the series, and it wasn't too dull, like some middle books are in trilogies, with not much going on, only filling the space between the first and third books. This wasn't like that, not too much anyway, and it had everything I liked about the first book, the fascinating world and characters, the imagination behind it, and it managed to keep going at the same pace.
It left me really looking forward to reading the next, and final, book to find out how it all ends. The Divergent series is a very exciting one, that can't be denied.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Name: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Harper Collins
Date published: 2012
Rating: 4/5
Spoiler warning: Moderate

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

- From Goodreads.

At the beginning of Divergent, I couldn't really relate to the Dauntless at all, I couldn't understand them, and then I realised that I didn't really like the way they and some of the other factions worked. Then I realised that maybe that was how I was supposed to feel, because, while some members of Dauntless understood the real values of the faction ("I believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another"), they were then punished for that, and it was clearly a corrupt faction, just as Erudite was discovered to be, and maybe even just as the whole faction system was. I thought it was clever how you came to realise these facts over time while reading the book.
The story included some really interesting ideas, of the future, of a dystopian society, with the factions, the relationships between them, down to the characters themselves. All of these ideas were well thought out and consequently quite interesting. It was clear that a lot of thought and effort had gone into creating the world of Divergent, and that left me intrigued to know more about it.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Name: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Authors: John Green and David Levithan
Publisher: Penguin
Date published: 2013
Rating: 4/5 (actually more like a 4.5 out of 5, but Goodreads doesn't do ratings by halves, so I suppose that I won't either).

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers cross paths. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, culminating in heroic turns-of-heart and the most epic musical ever to grace the high-school stage.

- From Goodreads.

In Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I thought that there was a really interesting dynamic between the two Will Graysons (Grayson's?). They were two very different people who still managed to understand each other despite their differences. I liked the symmetry of the fact that they only met twice; the first time towards the beginning, on the night that sort of put everything into motion (I don't want to say the night when everything changed, or the night that started it all, or anything else like that, because it doesn't start everything, because some things have already started and you can never really say exactly when something starts, and it wasn't when everything changed because some things were already changing and some things didn't change - but I digress), and for the second time on the night of the play, where the book ends. I don't really know why, but that kind of symmetry is really quite satisfying (and now that I've spent half of the review blathering on about symmetry and other nonsensical things, let's move on to the next point).
Despite the fact that, I suppose, this book could be called a romantic comedy (or a comedic romance?) (although calling it that would very much simplify everything and would actually really not be a great summary), it wasn't an easy read, in that it challenged you a little, mostly with the cat thing (I'm not a great philosopher), but also with other stuff, for example, in dealing with issues of sexuality, body image, and depression (which it dealt with in a good manner, I thought).
Finally, I would also like to note that I would have thought that David Levithan's Will Grayson's complete lack of correct capitalisation anywhere at all in his sentences would have really annoyed and frustrated me, and maybe it did at first, but eventually I got used to it, and actually ended up sort of forgetting it by the time the book had finished, so I think that must be a plus point.

Add the book on Goodreads | John Green's website | David Levithan's website

Review: Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern

Name: Love, Rosie
Author: Cecelia Ahern
Publisher: Harper
Date published: 2014
Rating: 5/5

Best friends since forever, Rosie and Alex have shared their hopes, dreams - and firsts. But one awkward moment at eighteen, one missed opportunity, and life sends them hurtling in different directions. Although they stay in touch, misunderstandings, circumstances and sheer bad luck seem to be conspiring to keep them apart. Can they gamble everything - even their friendship - on true love?

- From Goodreads.

One of my greatest weaknesses is stories of romance, or, even better, stories of romance and comedy (Love Actually? Notting Hill? Four Weddings and a Funeral? Yes, please), and Love, Rosie has both, and a brilliant combination of both, at that.
The fact that the story takes you over a lifetime, rather than just looking at a year or so in the character's life, really means you can take the time to get to know all the characters and become attached to them, to understand them, to really feel like you've spent time with them. Consequently, the more emotional parts of the story really get to you, really make you feel the happiness, sadness and everything else.
I felt like you really get to know the places in the story, as well as the characters, especially Ireland. You get a real feel for exploring the world, with all the travelling the characters do. I really like it when you can travel the world through reading books and this book definitely has elements of that which add to its enjoyment, and there is definitely a lot to enjoy about Love, Rosie.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: No Stone Unturned by Helen Watts

Name: No Stone Unturned
Author: Helen Watts
Publisher: A & C Black
Date published: 2014
Rating: 5/5

Kelly, a Traveller girl, is isolated and unhappy at her new school. Until the hot summer day when she meets Ben. Ben offers to help Kelly with her history project. It's just schoolwork - except that the investigation quickly becomes compelling. Strange puzzles are revealed. A dark secret of the local quarry comes to life. Soon the mystery of the past is spilling into the present - and into Kelly's own life. Kelly must bring the long-buried truth to light. And she will leave no stone unturned...

- From Goodreads

No Stone Unturned was an excellent, intriguing story that I really loved reading. I loved the way the author was inspired by real history to create a story of her own, and that story really brought history to life, giving facts and figures real action and emotions.
I think I really enjoyed this so much because I've always been interested in history, especially with how it feels to go out and discover something on your own. But I also really liked the mystery of it, it encouraged you to work out what had happened and I thought that made it very intriguing. I think both lovers of history and crime mysteries will enjoy this book.
Plus, I always love it when I find Doctor Who mentioned in a book, so props to Helen Watts for the Weeping Angels reference! (I also, like Kelly, hid behind a cushion when I watched that particular episode. In fact, I think I might have even hidden behind the sofa).

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Paper Towns by John Green

Name: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Date published: 2010
Rating: 5/5

Quentin has always loved Margo Roth Spiegelman, for Margo (and her adventures) are the stuff of legend at their high school. So when she one day climbs through his window and summons him on an all-night road trip of revenge he cannot help but follow.

But the next day Margo doesn’t come to school and a week later she is still missing. Q soon learns that there are clues in her disappearance . . . and they are for him. But as he gets deeper into the mystery – culminating in another awesome road trip across America – he becomes less sure of who and what he is looking for.

- From Goodreads.

Paper Towns was a book full of insightful metaphors, beautiful descriptions, fantastic symbolism and all that other kind of stuff that John Green is just so good at. 
I thought that the book had a really interesting perspective on the way that we look at people and whether  what we see when we look at people is actually them or just one idea of them - maybe even just one idea of many. For that reason, I found it quite thought-provoking; I was continuously thinking about the ideas the book presented throughout the story.
I think it can also make you think because of the twists in the plot and the different directions it kept taking, in the search for Margo and with the different theories of what happened to her that everyone had. 
I liked the inclusion of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, because I read it this past year at university, and I really liked the way Q couldn't quite understand it at first, and then came to understand it through coming to understand Margo. I think I might have to go and read the poem again now that I've read this book, because I think I've definitely been given a different perspective on it!

P.S. I went to see the movie this week, and it was amazing! The acting was brilliant and I really loved the music that was used in the film. I'd definitely recommend going to see it (and reading the book, of course)!

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Name: The Sin Eater's Daughter
Author: Melinda Salisbury
Publisher: Scholastic Children's Books
Date published: 2015
Rating: 4/5
Spoiler warning: Pretty major, to be honest. I couldn't seem to write about this book without spoiling it, to be honest.

I am the perfect weapon.

I kill with a single touch.

Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla's chilling role to the girls she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous and the queen's, some truths should not be told...
- From Goodreads.

I thought that The Sin Eater's Daughter included really brilliant world-building with the beliefs, geography, legends and all of the other details of the fantasy world it was set in being so well thought out. This was especially true with the way that we came to believe in it all too, which made it really devastating when Twylla's world came crashing down (side note: cool name, Twylla).
The great world-building was paired with excellent writing, although I noticed that the phrase "It wasn't until...that I realised I had been holding my breath" , or at least some variations on that, cropped up more than once, and while I think that it works as a phrase, emphasising tension and all that jazz, I think caution should be taken in repeating it, because it loses it's impact when it's used more often.
Another point which meant that I gave this book a rating of four rather than five, was that I wasn't sure about some of the choices Twylla made or some of the actions she took as I couldn't relate to them myself, and while I definitely enjoyed reading the story, I found I was distanced from it somewhat because of that. I also found I didn't fall in love with Lief as much as Twylla did, I did like him, but I couldn't relate to Twylla's feelings towards him, and I think I liked him more when he was first introduced than I did by the end (and not just because of what we found out about him) and I felt more sorry for Merek than I ever did for Lief.
Something else I wasn't sure about was the ending. I liked how Twylla had independence and happiness and how she had promised to return to Merek if the sleeping prince ever appeared, I thought that was the right promise to make, but I think I wanted her to stay with Merek in the castle in the first place (I'm not sure why but I think I might be Team Merek, if that's a thing). I also thought it was quite clear who it was that knocked on her door at the very end and I'm not sure how I feel about that either.
However, all in all, I very much enjoyed the book and now I'm going to go and learn about Victorian flower language, reread the book once I have done so, and then try and discover if there is going to be a follow up to this book, because if there is going to be one, then I will most definitely be reading it.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Name: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Author: Jesse Andrews
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Date published: 2015
Rating: 5/5

Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.
Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.
Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia - cue extreme adolescent awkwardness - but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.
And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight.

- From Goodreads.

I don't even know if I can form a coherent sentence about this book (in a good way), but I suppose it's worth a try. 
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was straight-to-the-point hilarious. I found it funny from the first sentence, which you might not expect considering the subject matter, and which consequently gave the book quite a unique twist (I don't know about you but I've never read a laugh-out-loud funny book about cancer before). I think part of what made it so funny was the real, relatable characters, especially with Greg's self-deprecating narration which felt so true to life. It's completely and utterly honest in a brilliant way.
Something else that really made me love this book was that, even with the comedy element, it still managed to make you feel emotional about the characters and concerned for them. And even though you're kind of told what's going to happen at the end, you still hope it doesn't happen, you don't want it to happen, and yet the book almost helps you to accept that it will happen. Basically, it's depressing in a funny kind of way (and by that I mean both funny as in haha and funny as in odd).
Sometimes (and here's the part of the review where I just get emotional and ramble) it was so funny but then it was just so sad and I wanted to take Rachel and Greg and put them in a place where nothing could hurt them. Because cancer is so stupid.
Basically, it's a really depressing book and you should never read it, ever, because it's really awful and I hate it so much and I can't wait to tell everyone about it because it's now one of my favourite books and I love it so much and everyone should read it and you need to read it because it's so brilliant. It's ridiculous, really. By the end, I was sort of laughing and crying at the same time and it was just terrible, really terrible.
Conclusion: read this book. 

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: From Bad to Cursed by Katie Alender

Name: From Bad to Cursed
Author: Katie Alender
Publisher: Hyperion
Date published: 2011
Rating: 3/5
Spoiler warning: Minor

Although I did think that it was a good book, I did have a couple of issues with From Bad to Cursed. I thought that perhaps Alexis' change from trying to destroy Aralt to worshipping him could have been slightly more subtle and gradual. I found it quite noticeable and pronounced. If it had been done more discreetly, with the realisation of what was happening only eventually creeping up on the reader, that could have made it a little more intriguing.
And then there were other parts that were slightly hard to follow and sometimes I found it hard to remember whether Alexis was completely loyal to Aralt or not. I know this sounds contradictory to my last point but what I mean is that because Alexis' transformation from enemy to worshipper of Aralt was so sudden, because it was not slow enough, it was a bit difficult to understand, I was confused rather than intrigued. There were also moments when I almost could not keep up with what the other girls involved were up to.
Despite these issues, I did actually very much enjoy this book. I thought it was an interesting story with action, suspense, and even some humour mixed into it.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Fearless by Tim Lott

Name: Fearless
Author: Tim Lott
Publisher: Walker Books
Date published: 2007
Rating: 5/5
Spoiler warning: Minor

With Fearless, I really liked how the story was mostly told from the perspective of Little Fearless and the other children. They were quite innocent and naive, not exactly knowing or understanding what was going on outside the institute, or inside it, for that matter. But they were still intelligent, and definitely brave, in their own ways, and I think this all added to the inspirational nature of the story.
The book also had a very emotional nature, and I found the Controller's part especially sad. I did guess who he was (in relation to Little Fearless) quite close to the beginning of the book, but that did not make it any less heartbreaking when the truth was revealed.
Fearless had a very strong and important message about control and freedom, and I thought that the fact that it almost seemed to be written as if it was a young children's story while it had such a sinister truth to it gave the story's message a lot of impact.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website

Review: Someone Else's Life by Katie Dale

Name: Someone Else's Life
Author: Katie Dale
Publisher: Simon and Schuster UK
Date published: 2012
Number of pages: 478
Rating: 3/5

Someone Else's Life was incredibly dramatic, with many, many plot twists. Although I understood why it was so dramatic, as it dealt with a couple of very serious topics, I'm not sure if I liked how some parts were done and how there were a couple of questions that were still unanswered by the end. Seeing as the main point of the story was for Rosie to go on this journey to find out the truth about her life and the lives of the people around her, I felt it strange that I still had questions when it was over. Surely all my questions should have been answered?
At some points I did enjoy reading the book, it wasn't all bad, far from it, but there were some points when I really did not enjoy it. I especially didn't enjoy it between the middle and end of the book, when some of the characters' actions frustrated me and annoyed me slightly, so I couldn't relate to them because I didn't understand them.
Overall, I'd say that this was a good book, but it could have been better with some more realistic actions and reactions from the characters and with an ending that didn't feel as unsettling as it did.

Add the book on Goodreads | Author's website