This is going to be my first ever book review, which actually feels quite bizarre since I've had a deep love for books since I was a little girl. I recently finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and I must say I fell in love with it. To give a short and non spoilered summary it is about a young girl from Nazi Germany who moves in with her adoptive parents and the story of her life. The great twist behind it is that the book is not narrated by her, but by death.

The book has made me both laugh out loud and had me close to tears, I especially enjoyed the way it was laid out every now and then there would be a small interjection be it a thought, a small poem or a word definition to think about. I found that they would never distract you from the story but they were very cleverly written in a way that added a certain depth to the story.

This book often made me stop and think about many things such as love and war, warning as you would probably expect from any book set in Nazi Germany this is not too happy a read. If you're looking for something quick, light and carefree then I'd say maybe save this book for another day. Nonetheless I would hugely recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Other than the occasional swear word, and of course the fact the main themes are war and death the book could be considered family suitable, my 13 year old sister has read it too.

Charity Shop Book Haul:

If you don't know that I love both shopping and books by now then you never will. So when I wandered into a charity shop with my dad and found out the the books were just 50p each I went a little crazy and bought many books!

The first is The Beach House by Jane Green, from what I've read on the blurb it's about a widowed woman who begins renting out rooms of her beach house and both her and those she rents to's stories. It fittingly enough sounds like it would be a good beach read.

This was the first one I picked up and after laughing out loud simply by reading the blurb I just had to pick it up. This one is about a man who bumps into a woman on Charlotte Street who thinks she was the most amazing woman he's ever seen but she leaves behind her camera by accident. Should he develop the photos in hope of finding her or just throw it away?

My Sister's Keeper is supposed to be one of those classic books that everyone has read. So I thought I'd better keep up and give it a read too. I haven't seen the film but I'm not too worried about that since I'm a big believer in reading the books first.

Now the Bridget Jones films I have seen and LOVE! These are books I've wanted to read in so long so when I saw them both right into my bag they went. I've heard that these are just as funny as the films so I can't wait to give them a read.

A little bit of cheesy chick-lit never hurt anyone so when I read the blurb of To Marry a Prince and found it was about a woman who meets a man not knowing he's a Prince and they fall in love, well I was sold. I love this kind of thing as a break from heavier books and work and University life every now and again.

Another seemingly similar book  is How it all Began. Now I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover but that's what made me pick this one up, the pretty flowers and tea cups (I know, I know I'm and 80 year old woman in an 18 year old's body). This book follows one event and how it leads on to others in other people's lives. For example it starts with someone asking a friend to fill in for them at an even, which leads the friend to have to cancel a meet up with her lover, which leads to the lover's wife finding out and so on. I thought it would make quite an interesting read.

I've read and couldn't put down One Day so I thought I'd give Starter For Ten a go since they're both by David Nicholls. I've read some good reviews about this one but that's really all I know about it. I don't think that's too bad a thing though it'll be nice going into it and just seeing where the story goes with no previous expectations.

Two Caravans by Maria Lewycka is about a group of people from many different countries who come to England to pick strawberries, some of them however are kidnapped so the others go off to find and save them. This isn't my usual kind of read I'll be honest but I liked the sound of this and I also thought it was time I branched out a little.

Those are all the books I picked up and I think it's safe to say I wont be short of beach reads come Summer! Do you have any recommendations for me? 

xxx

Current Book Wishlist:

If you know me well then you'll know that curling up with a cup of tea and a book (as stereotypically British as that is) makes me a very happy girl indeed. I've actually had to put myself on a book buying ban because I've bought so many books that I've hardly read most of them because I can't keep up with myself. None the less, I still have a huge wishlist and I thought some of you may be interested. I've also done a post on my favourite "Chick-lit" books too.

The first is actually a set of books, Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras by Scott Westerfield, I've heard that if you like The Hunger Games then you'll like these books, and I more than like The Hunger Games, so I definitely want to give these a read. The novels were actually brought out before The Hunger Games trilogy but that was when I was much younger and still perfectly happy with my Jacqueline Wilson and nothing else, but now I've grown and my tastes have changed. I'll admit I know next to nothing about the stories, but it comes highly recommended.

This is another of my obsessions shining through, I'm in love with the show Wicked and as soon as I found out it had been based on a book I knew I just had to read it! If you don't know what it's about then, basically Gregory Maguire is telling the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz became "Wicked". I won't say anything about the story so as not to ruin anything for you but it's an amazing musical and so hopefully and amazing book too. I'm not even that big a fan of The Wizard of Oz as it is yet I love Wicked so don't let that put you off.

 Can you tell I'm a musical fan? If you follow me on Twitter then you'll know that all I do is tweet about wanting to see Les Mis on stage, I have both the movie and the 25th Anniversary edition on DVD and I also really want to read the book. I know it's crazily thick and I'll probably have to read something happy and funny afterwards to recover but I'm still really interested to see how they made a musical out of a book and see what the original story was.

I must have picked this book up in Waterstones but then put it down again soon afterwards, convincing myself I really don't need another book about a million times. Now though, I just think if I've picked it up so many times and wanted it for so long I really should get it. It's about a man who dies and meets 5 people when he gets to heaven who explain to him how he's reached their lives in one way or another. I think it sounds like a really nice book, the kind that you read and feel relaxed. I may well be wrong having not read it but there's only one way to find out.

 A Casual Vacancy, quite simply because I'm curious. What did J.K do after Harry Potter? I'm not sure whether I'll like this book or not because I'm worried all I'll be able to think is this isn't Harry Potter! Hopefully, J.K.Rowling will be talented enough to make me forget about that as I read and just focus on the story at hand. 

That's all for this wishlist (or at least I thought I'd keep it at five because if I wrote about all the books I wanted we'd be here all day). What about you? Do you have any recommendations for me? If you do please leave them in the comments I'm always looking for new books because they're one of my many obsessions. See you next Saturday!

xxx