Sawkill Girls – Amy Leigh Reads

Extraordinary Book Titles

October 15, 2019July 11, 2020by amyleighreads10 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is books with extraordinary book titles. I have chosen 10 books from this year with interesting book titles that played a factor in making me want to pick them up! These could be books I’ve never heard of before, super hyped books or random books that immediately intrigued me because of its name.

Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody

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The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

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Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

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The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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Birthday by Meredith Russo

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Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

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The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

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Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

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Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young

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Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

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Top Ten Tuesdays

Books I Enjoyed Outside my Comfort Zone

September 3, 2019July 11, 2020by amyleighreads10 Comments

So I typically only read fantasy but since starting my blog I have really started to expand my reading tastes and dip my toes in other genres. As this week’s Top Ten Tuesday is books I enjoyed outside of my comfort zone I went through and picked 5 books that sparked my love of these other genres.

1 copy The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware – I had wanted to pick up mystery/thrillers for the longest time and I came across The Death of Mrs Westaway in a book store and I remembered it had some good reviews so I picked it up and LOVED it!

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2 copy Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand – this was my first real foray into more dark/horror fantasy and I really enjoyed it! This book was super eerie and strange and it captured me right from the start.

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3 copy The Hating Game by Sally Thorne – This book propelled me back into the world of adult romance/smut. I am a sucker for the hate to love trope and this book executed it perfectly.

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4 copy Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – Sci-fi isn’t my thing at all and Ready Player One has really been the only book in the sci-fi genre I have been able to stomach so far. I recently read The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet not too long ago and didn’t really enjoy it all that much but I am still open to picking up more books from this genre and exploring what else it has to offer!

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5 copy Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia – this was my real first kind of hard hitting young adult contemporary book with mental health representation included. Up until I picked Eliza and Her Monsters up I was just reading a lot of fluffy YA books with no real substance.

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Wrap Ups

June Wrap Up

July 1, 2019July 2, 2019by amyleighreads2 Comments

I had a fantastic reading month, oh my goodness! Nothing below a 4 out of 5 stars. I don’t think that has happened to me since I started my blog so I am pretty stoked with my outcome for June! I think my not having a pre-established TBR was definitely a success and I feel I will be adopting that practice in the months to come because of how prolific my reading was. By far my best reading month I think ever…

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray – ⭐️4/5 stars

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan – ⭐️4/5 stars

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendriks & Sarah Pekkanen – ⭐️4/5 stars

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – ⭐️5/5 stars

Uprooted by Naomi Novik – ⭐️4/5 stars

Sawkill Girls by Clare Legrand – ⭐️4/5 stars

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren – ⭐️5/5 stars

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik – ⭐️4/5 stars

Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence – ⭐️5/5 stars

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – ⭐️4.5/5 stars

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead – ⭐️5/5 stars

Frost Bite by Richelle Mead – ⭐️4/5 stars

Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead – ⭐️4/5 stars

Blood Promise by Richelle Mead – ⭐️4/5 stars

Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead – ⭐️5/5 stars

Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead – ⭐️5/5 stars

Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey – ⭐️5/5 stars

Somewhere Only We Know by Maureen Goo – ⭐️4/5 stars

Reviews

Sawkill Girls Review

June 12, 2019June 13, 2019by amyleighreads1 Comment

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

38139409 Sawkill Girls is about a town that is located on an island called Sawkill Rock where for the last 120ish years girls have gone missing and none have ever been found. The book follows the perspectives of three girls who live in this town; Marion who has just relocated to Sawkill Rock after her father passed away in a car accident, Zoey who has lived here for a few years now with her father who is the police chief and Valerie whose family have always lived on Sawkill Rock.

This was actually pretty trippy. I was a little lost for around the first 100 or so pages. There wasn’t really a lot going on at the start but I found I wasn’t really engaged in the story until like the last quarter or so of the plot.

I loved Zoey’s character the most. I found her to be super relatable. I love that she already had this established idea of what had happened to Thora and she wouldn’t let anyone talk her out of it or accept that she just simply disappeared.

I didn’t really like Valerie a whole lot. She was a super bitch at the start and the fact that she is complicit but then is kind of given a redemption arc that I felt wasn’t really justified. I get that she was really held hostage by her family and their circumstances but I didn’t feel like she was empathetic at all until she started getting feelings for Marion.

Marion kind of got on my nerves as well. I mean her sister befriends this girl and two minutes later goes missing and your only real friend is telling you that she thinks this girl and her family is behind everything and you go on a walk with her through the woods by yourself late at night and then make out with her? Her reasoning for everything just didn’t sit right with me I guess.

Other than that I actually really enjoyed my experience reading this book. It was super unique and a little bizarre but I was definitely intrigued enough to read on. I loved how strange everything kind of was and it got really weird but I was into it and I liked not being able to predict what was going to happen next because I can honestly say I’ve never read anything close to this storyline at all.

⭐️4/5 Cool mix of fantasy and horror!