Ely College Reading Group

Glasgow Boys
Absolutely loved this book!! The characters were written so well and their development was actually realistic and beautifully shown. Personally, Banjo was my favourite. I find Scottish accents usually annoying or hard to read/understand, but the accent was presented so well it was just amazing. Not one for romance but this one aced it and i just really loved it!!

Maya

Glasgow Boys
To put it briefly, this book was amazing. The characters, the setting, the relationships, the narrative - it was all so brilliant and so heartwarming to read, and I loved it so much!

Sophie

Play
This book really exceeded my expectations; I really wasn't anticipating much from reading the blurb, but I found that I enjoyed reading about challenges from a perspective I'd never considered before and that I could understand the characters' choices and views just from how well they were written, despite having a very different opinion myself.

Sophie

Play
I really loved this book and, despite its slightly confusing start, it got me engaged pretty quickly. The fact that there was a chapter for each character's story and point of view made the book so interesting and quite hard to put down as it makes you always want to know what happens next. The issues portrayed in this book were very realistic and made me realise how there could be people going through difficult situations, like Mark's and Luc's, right in this moment. So even if I'm not usually interested in books with these strong topics (since it's hard to write them in an engaging way) this book was actually successful in grabbing my attention.

Maya

The Final Year
Personally, I found this book to be too short and too different to really be comparable to others on the shortlist, however I enjoyed how the characters and emotions were depicted very well and realistically.

Sophie

The Things We Leave Behind
At first, the book was a little too slow and not very engaging for me, however overall, I found the story to be a very interesting read with many themes and elements that are incredibly relevant to society at the moment.

Sophie

King of Nothing
I didn't have very high expectations when I first started reading this book, but, as it went on, it just got better and better and even unpredictable at times. I really enjoyed it and thought it was a good story to teach others about toxic masculinity, as the world today still struggles with it. I loved how Nanna was presented and also loved how much she resembled my own grandmother in personality.

Maya

Little Bang
I loved this book! I thought it covered a really interesting topic that you don't hear about much. one line said by Sid was something like: "why do we not know anything about this?" and i just sat there thinking the exact same thing! beautiful book! amazingly written!

Imogen

Little Bang
I have only -so far- read about half of this book and I love it! Any spare time I have I try to squeeze in some extra reading. It does cover quite a mature/adult topic, however, I think that the author has tackled it very maturely and sensibly. This book has really opened my eyes to the "old fashioned" problems that happened just 7 years ago.

Eliza

Glasgow Boys
I couldn't put this book down! It took me through every emotion and the ending made me cry, which isn't something that happens often. I definitely felt like I had gone through a journey with the characters and I became very invested in their outcomes. What a book! I recommend this very highly!

Mrs Shaw

The Final Year
This book is so sad! It's written in verse, which gets a bit annoying at the start, but really enhances the story at certain times. It's a really quick and easy read and overall a pretty good book.

Daisy

Glasgow Boys
I absolutely loved this book. The two main characters had such deep personas and their story and relationships were developed so well. The Scottish was written so well I could hear the Scottish in my head when I was reading it. This is the best one I have read so far!!

Willow

All That It Ever Meant
I didn’t really like this book because it jumped around a lot and I couldn’t really tell where one section ended and one started. It was strange however because the twist at the end made me feel something.

Willow

The Things We Leave Behind
I really enjoyed this book because it made me understand the hardships of the world we could end up living in, in the future. I loved the 1000 paper cranes theme as I can make cranes myself.

Willow

Little Bang
This book challenged me to look at the subject of abortion from different angles and also consider the issue of making decisions about your body and your future when you are very young. I really felt the weight and pain of these decisions with the characters. I highly recommend this book.

Mrs Shaw