The Small Hand by Susan Hill

No. of pages: 167
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: Returning home from a visit to a client late one summer’s evening, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow takes a wrong turning and stumbles across the derelict old White House. Compelled by curiosity, he approaches the door, and, standing before the entrance feels the unmistakable sensation of a small hand creeping into his own, ‘as if a child had taken hold of it’. Intrigued by the encounter, he determines to learn more, and discovers that the owner’s grandson had drowned tragically many years before. At first unperturbed by the odd experience, Snow begins to be plagued by haunting dreams, panic attacks, and more frequent visits from the small hand which become increasingly threatening and sinister…

Review: Having taken a wrong turn on a country road, Adam Snow accidentally comes across a once beautiful, but now run down abandoned house. As he stands admiring it, he feels a little hand slip in to his, but to his horror, there is no one stood beside him. As he tries to forget the experience, he feels the hand slip in to his again, and realises he needs to find out more about the house that led him to the hand...

A pretty disappointing read overall really. I was expecting a scary ghost story and it was nothing of the sort, and I actually found it to be pretty dull. It had so much potential to be great as well which is a shame. I did enjoy the mystery aspect of the plot as so far as I wanted to know the story behind the hand, but didn't really feel that it was explained to much extent. The characters were never explored to any depth, so I never felt like I got to know or like any of them. I think the best bit about this book is the fact it's so short, so it didn't take long to get through. I don't think I'd read anything by this author again.

The Toymaker by Jeremy De Quidt

No. of pages: 356
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: What good is a toy that will wind down? What if you could put a heart in one? A real heart. One that beat and beat and didn't stop. What couldn't you do if you could make a toy like that? From the moment Mathias becomes the owner of a mysterious piece of paper, he is in terrible danger. Entangled in devious plots and pursued by the sinister Doctor Leiter and his devilish toys, Mathias finds himself on a quest to uncover a deadly secret.

Review: When Mathias receives a piece of paper that is quite clearly a clue to something, he finds himself on a dangerous mission to uncover a sinister secret.

I think my main problem with this book was that I was expecting something completely different. From the synopsis on the back of the book, I had imagined something very different to how the story actually was, and that for me was very disappointing. The plot in itself is not bad, but this was just not the book for me. I really struggled to get through it and seriously considered giving up on it numerous times. It was only the fact I hate to give up on books that made me carry on, just in case it turned out to be great. Sadly, in this case, it didn't. I didn't like any of the characters, the ending was pretty rubbish and didn't even fully wrap up the story and I'm surprised that a childrens book has so much violence in it. This should teach me a lesson that cool covers do not equal cool books!

Prom Nights From Hell by Meg Cabot, Stephenie Meyer, Kim Harrison, Michele Jaffe & Lauren Myracle

No. of pages: 304
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: Stephenie Meyer and Meg Cabot head up this collection of 5 thrilling paranormal short stories which take bad prom nights to a whole new level. Imagine discovering you're dancing with the Grim Reaper -- and he isn't there to tell you how hot you look. Worried that your Prom Night is gonna bite? This thrilling collection takes bad prom nights to a whole new level -- a paranormally bad level!

Review: Five short stories, showing the terror of the school prom. The Exterminator's Daughter - Mary is trying to hunt down and kill the vampire that got her mother. The Corsage - Frankie gets a corsage that grants her 3 wishes, although in the end she wishes she had never touched it. Madison Avery And The Dim Reaper - Madison meets the grim reaper at her prom, and finds he has very nasty plans for her. Kiss And Tell - Miranda has 'super powers' and uses them to protect a young girl she encounters during her job. Hell On Earth - A low level chaos demon decides to have a little fun at the prom.

This turned out to be nothing like what I was expecting it to be. I thought all of the stories would be set within proms, instead only one story was, the rest had about 3 pages of prom action, which I found to be disappointing. Of the five, I only thought one of them was particularly good, and that was Michele Jaffe's Kiss And Tell, which was by far my favourite. I don't really know what else I can say other than to say it was generally very dull to read, and it was only the fact the stories were so short that I bothered to finish it.

Home by Nicola Davies

No. of pages: 259
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: It's 2067 and the world has become virtually uninhabitable with all the pollution and toxins created by mankind. Ruling classes live holed up in the cities and workers live in Stations, safe from the outside world. But one day Station 27 is taken over by rebels. Nero, from the ruling classes, and Sacks, a worker, find themselves thrown together as they're captured by the rebels, their common enemy. As they begin to discover the terrifying truth about their world, the two children get separated and find themselves in great danger. Will they find each other before it is too late?

Review: All of the workers have been told that the outside world is harmful, and so everyone stays inside the glass domes where they work and sleep. Except for Sacks. When she goes out and realises it's not actually harmful, it sets in motion a massive set of events, which leads to something Sacks could never have dreamed of...

This wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be, which is a bit of a shame. The storyline was okay, the characters were okay, but nothing was ever more than okay. An easy read with an interesting concept which could have been so much more than it was. The way they talked was really annoying, the workers who were meant to be the lower class had chavvy London accents, and the rulers all spoke perfect english, which just seemed like such a stupid stereotype. Not something I'd bother recommending.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

No. of pages: 216
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany's Nazi past and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: what should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust?

Review: 15 year old Michael starts a love affair with Hanna, a woman in her 30's, although she always holds herself back from him and he never knows why. Years later when he's a law student, he sees her in a court room being accused of awful things. Michael struggles to come to terms with having loved someone so terrible...

This is a weird book for me as I didn't like it at all, but it's a very thought provoking book. It raises the question of 'how far would you go to hide something?', and the answer in the book is 'too far'. I personally cannot ever imagine doing the things Hanna did, right from sleeping with a child to what she did during the war. I found Hanna to be quite a hateful character, and I thought she was insanely selfish but yet I felt forced to feel sympathy for her when she quite clearly didn't deserve it. I thought that part one was the best section of the book, and my interest slowly waned through parts two and three. It's a book I'm glad I've read, but one I'd not bother to pick up again.

The Awakening by L.J. Smith

No. of pages: 199
Rating: 4/10
Series: Vampire Diaries (Book 1)

Synopsis: Elena Gilbert is used to getting what she wants and she wants mysterious new boy, Stefan. But Stefan is hiding a deadly secret - a secret that will change Elena’s life forever...

Review: Stefan, sick of life hiding in the dark, goes to Fell's Church to try and fit in as a new high school student but when Elena Gilbert sees him, she's determined to have him. But what she doesn't know is he's hiding a dark secret...

It took me ages to get into this book, I felt the story at the beginning just seemed to drag and wasn't interesting at all. It did start to pick up around page 100, but was still pretty predictable. The characters aren't particularly endearing, in fact I quite dislike the main character who is just the shallow popular girl at school determined to have the new good looking student. I have the rest of the books, so I will be carrying on with the series, but I seriously hope they get more of a plot.

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

No. of pages: 168
Rating: 4/10

Synopsis: At 18 years old, after a shockingly brief interview with a doctor, Susanna Kaysen was sent to a psychiatric hospital where she spent most of the next two years. It was 1967, and this extraordinary account examines the 'parallel universe' of life on the teenage girls' ward. The outside world romping through the late 1960s is set against the extraordinary, the funny and the tragic events in the lives of the girls inside, brilliantly exploring the sane and insane, illness and recovery.

Review: To be frankly honest I found this pretty boring and at times quite tedious to read. There was no depth to the story, it was disjointed and randomly shot off in different tangents and there are chapters just full of random rambling. It almost felt as though this wasn't really a book about her time in the ward, but merely a chance to say "they were wrong and I wasn't crazy". The film is a millions times better and I would recommend that over the book, however, the book tells you what happens to some of the other girls after she leaves the ward and you don't find that out in the film. Not something I would bother to re-read.