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Written by: Michelle Paver.
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Written by: Michelle Paver.I have been a fan of William's work for a very long time now, since 2010's Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide was released and I have loved seeing his career and talents flourish year after year. Last years Hideous Beauty was a stunning read and at some points I wondered how Will could ever top himself, but with The Outrage, he goes above and beyond and I couldn't be happier to have been able to read this book! Right from the start I was sucked into the world of a Britain where we have regressed far further than many could ever imagine possible. A totalitarian state where people are in a constant state of suspicion, looking out for those who may be different.I fell in love with the characters. Gabe himself is boyfriend goals and I loved him right from the very start. He isn't perfect and he doesn't pretend to be. He has anger issues, but he loves so fiercely and so protectively regardless of what people do to him in return and I loved this about him. I'm glad he was the narrator because he was a my favourite of the lot and I really enjoyed getting into his head and seeing how he saw the world. I also liked Eric because he is flawed too. He wants to be open and honest, he wants to live the life he knows that he truly desires, but also doesn't want to do anything to upset his father, a high ranking officer within the Protectorate itself.I've seen first hand a lot of unwarranted abuse thrown at Will online because of the premise of this book. Telling him that he is too privileged to have written a book like this. Being gay isn't illegal in Britain anymore. It used to be. Yeah, we have progressed, we have made leaps and strides that just seem natural. Why shouldn't LGBTQ+ people have the same rights that straight people do? Yes, we are lucky in that sense, lucky in ways that some can only dream of, where their sexuality can get them imprisoned, or worse, killed. But given things going on within the country today, the governments lack of action against conversion therapy, constant backpedaling now saying that they won't condemn religious groups. As it says in the book, sometimes we take this progress for granted and stop fighting for it. That is what the book is about. It isn't about how horrible it is that you can be persecuted for who you love in some parts of the world. It is about the fact that we all deserve complete and total equality, regardless of which country you come from, what religion you are. We should not be deemed lesser just because some people think that we are. This book is about keeping the fight alive. Not being complacent and allowing those who would seek to take our rights away from us win. We need to keep fighting to be equal and we need to fight for that equality to spread all the way around the world and stay there!I am so proud of Will for this book and know that a book like this would have made 14 year old me swell with self-worth and it would definitely have helped me in ways that I hope it will teens today! I am so glad that today, teens around the world have access to so much more representation than there was when I was a gay teen struggling to accept who I was!So beautifully written, The Outrage was a page turner of epic proportions. I just had to keep going! There are books that stay with you long after you have read the last page and closed the book for the last time. Characters and words that merge with you and stay with you forever, and The Outrage is one of those books. Moving, thought provoking and enthralling, I cannot wait for people to read it!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
It may not be starting off the way that we had hoped but I'm hoping the strangeness of 2020 won't linger for too long and that 2021 can actually be a good year! As crap as it was, 2020 was actually a VERY good reading year for me. I have been working from home since March and the time not spent commuting has meant I've had more time to myself, I've also been working different hours to what I used to in the office which also gave me more time to read, and social distancing worked wonders for my tbr as I managed to read 62 books despite setting myself an initial target of 30 books. I guess not being able to have a life and see friends can be a good thing!
I've thought a lot about how many books I would like to try and read this year. I am setting myself up a reading journal... as if I don't record my reads in enough places. I use Goodreads, obviously... I use an app called Bookly which has changed my life. It records how long you read, tells you how fast you read, gives you so many stats... I LOVE IT! I also have a note open in my notes app which I update with what I've read as I finish it, but I wanted somewhere physically to hopefully keep a couple of years worth of reads all in one place together. Whether I keep it running or not will be something else altogether but we'll see...
So I have preliminarily set myself a target of 45 books. I can obviously edit this later but I am conscious of the fact that I would like life to return to normal at some point this year and as it does that would probably mean less time to read and 45 seems like a good, manageable number. I changed my target twice last year, from 30 to 40, then 40 to 50 and once I'd hit 50 I just thought I would leave it and enjoy everything else I read.
I also have blogging resolutions. To be more active. I'm active on twitter, always talking about books on there, and I've started to get back into instagram slowly, but I want to get better at actually posting my reviews. One personal resolution for 2021 is to use my time better and to manage myself better so that goes hand in hand with more blogging so hopefully that'll sort it out! We shall see!
I really want to read more long-running series this year. I have been meaning to read more Discrworld books and this year I am aiming to get as many as I can in! I have some series that I have started but haven't finished. I have some books that I have owned for YEARS and just haven't gotten around to so I want to try and cut some of them down this year. I'd also like to sort out my Netgalley percentage which... LETS NOT GO THERE! I did do a month last year where I only read Netgalley proofs and managed to get my percentage up a whopping 3% (lol) so maybe I'll manage to sort some of those out this year too!
The main thing is I just want to enjoy everything I read and to have as much fun as possible!
What are your reading resolutions for 2021 if you have any?