Book Review: An Untimely Love by Tendai Huchu

  

Author: Tendai Huchu

My Rating: 3 cups

Source: review copy offered by the author

Blurb (from Goodreads):

Love can find us in the most unusual of circumstances. This is what happens to Khalid Patel, a terrorist, when he falls in love with Smokey, a feisty and independent young woman who was to be Britain's first female suicide bomber. On what is meant to be his day of martyrdom, his violent worldview is thrown into turmoil. We share his thoughts as Death and Duty become irrevocably and movingly entwined with Love and Life.

I've never read a book where terrorists or suicide bombers were the main characters before. I have to say it was a really interesting perspective and I was actually surprised.  I liked Khalid's story and to see how he grew from the suicide bomber from the beginning of the novel to the man who sacrifices his freedom and happiness to save thousands of innocent people at the end of the book. The reader gets to see how Khalid transformed from an ordinary student to a trained terrorist.

For a while the story goes back and forth between Khalid preparing, along with his three other partners, to arrive at the train station and Khalid's past, where we see him learning to fish, to start a fire, to make bombs, to practice target shooting. Somewhere along the way, he falls in love with Selina "Smokey" Ashraf and they get married on their way to the train station. After that, the story focuses on Khalid, his struggle to kill the man who destroyed his life and, later, to find and rescue Smokey.

What I liked about the book was that it was filled with action and suspense. There is never a dull moment in this story. There were also moments where Khalid's internal struggle felt so raw and real, it was almost like it was right there in front of me.

What I would've liked to see more was the relationship between Khalid and Smokey, how they first met, how they fell in love. It didn't feel like this was a love story, even if it was doomed from the start, but more like it was Khalid's story and the story of his redemption.

Aside that, the book was really interesting.

Happy Easter!!!

Hey everyone! It's just past midnight in my neck of the woods, so I wanted to wish you all Happy Easter. I hope the Easter Bunny will bring you lots pf prezzies and happiness and anything you desire! 

Follow Friday (14)

Welcome to Follow Friday hosted this week by Parajunkee and Alison!
The main idea behind FF is just to go see a bunch of new blogs you may never have seen before, and follow the ones you like (and they’ll follow you back!) It’s a total win/win, so take a peek around!


This week’s question is:


Q: Have you ever bought a book BECAUSE of a bad review?




No, to be honest. Besides the fact that I rarely read reviews before I read the book, I believe that reviews are very personal. I've lost count of how many books I loved and others hated or books I couldn't care less about (and some I actually regret buying, let alone reading) that others loved them.

What about you?

Dirty Little Secret (6)

Dirty Little Secret is a weekly meme hosted by Under The Covers.

The rules are simple:

1. Be a follower of Under the Covers.
2. Create a post in your blog taking the meme image and copy instructions.
3. Answer the weekly question.

For more information and for signing up, go to the Under The Covers blog.


This week's question:




Now that Lover Reborn has come and passed, what book are you most looking forward to?!


Um...I know it sounds weird, but I didn't even thunk about this before. Huh...must be the weather. Anyway, looking through my "impatiently waiting for" list, I see the new Dark Hunter book, Time Untime. *sigh* Is it August yet??

What about you? What are you impatiently waiting for?

Cover Reveal

So I was doing my daily blog lurking and I found this awesome new cover *drum roll please* :

That's right, a knew hot cover from the awesome Lorelei James for her series of sexy, bad boy cowboys, Rough Riders. We still have to wait until June 26th for the book *pout* But at least now we can ogle and drool at this very cool, very sexy cover. 

Wednesday Chatter #1: When to read reviews

Wednesday Chatter is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books where we'll be talking about anything and everything related to books and reading. Click here if you want to see what we talked about in the previous weeks

Since I'm a very chatty person (and yes, I ramble a lot. There, I said it) I thought it would be a good idea to start this feature. I was also curious if I'm the only one feeling a certain way about... well, bookish things.

This week's topic is about reviews and when to read them. 

A few days ago I was talking with a friend of mine about book blogging and book reviews and, knowing I enjoy writing reviews, she asked if I also read reviews. I have to admit I am a very weird person. Though I enjoy writing reviews about the books I read, I am very particular about the reviews I read. That doesn't mean I don't read them at all, I do read reviews. But I read them only after I've read the book in question.

I realized it was better for me not to read reviews ahead of time when I was very young. I was about 13 years old and me and a very good friend from school (let's call him D) were doing a The Three Musketeers read-along. D is a booklover since he was very very young, so by the age of 13 he was a really fast reader (I think even know, he reads a lot faster than me, if that's possible). So, of course, he was about 3-4 chapters ahead of me. Every day for about...two weeks, while we were taking the subway on our way home, we would talk about what we read the day before and change opinions and arguing about what would happen next. At some point, I realized D wasn't playing fair, because he already knew what was going to happen. So I, curious as ever, started begging him (more like nagging) to tell me what was going to happen and tell me his what he thought about it. That ruined the book for me and I could never finish it. 

I realize that what D was giving me was a huge pile of spoilers instead of a review, but for me, it's basically the same thing. As soon as I read someone else's opinion about a book, my feelings change even before I started reading it. I notice things I probably would've ignored otherwise, while other details are lost to me. 

The main reason I do like to read reviews is because I want to see if someone else spotted the little details that I did, or to see if I'm the only one hating/loving certain things about the book. 

If I stumble across a review for a book I've never heard of before, I will read a small part of it. So my brain gets something along the lines of

I loved this book because....(skip this part, skip it, skip it!); I didn't like the fact that (skip, skip, skip). Recommended to fans of (insert genres or similar books).

What about you? Do you read reviews before or after you've read the book?