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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – Veg Every Day! | Review

Title: Veg Every Day!

Author: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 418

Rating: 4/5

I wasn’t expecting great things from this book, and in fact I nearly didn’t pick it up. I doubt I would have if it was full price, but it was on sale for just £1 in a charity shop, and it was also part of a pile where they were selling two books for £1, too. I’d already picked up one and so I figured, what the hell? It was basically free.

I’ve worked through a bunch of different vegan and vegetarian cookbooks of late, and not all of them have been good. This one has probably been the best of all of the vegetarian ones, but I still had to put some work in to veganise a bunch of the recipes. But I can’t exactly complain about that because I knew what was coming when I went into it.

And in fact, there are some cracking recipes in here, including my personal favourite, which is a herby, peanutty noodle salad. That isn’t the only recipe that I took away from this one, but it’s definitely the one that I’m likely to make the most often and it’s also the main recipe that springs to mind when I think of this one.

The truth is that this is such a hefty tome of recipes that there’s going to be something there for everyone, even if you’re a carnivore. There was so much choice here that it was enough to push it into a list of my top five favourite cookbooks that I recently filmed for my vegan YouTube channel. Not a bad effort, especially because it was the only one on the list that was a vegetarian cookbook as opposed to a vegan one.

Honestly though, this is the kind of book where there are so many recipes that there’s something there for everyone, including for die-hard meat eaters. It’s actually one of the few cookbooks that I’ve come across that’s arguably worth the full recommended retail price. So basically, I’d recommend this one, because the recipes were super tasty and super easy to make.

Still, if you’re looking for your first vegan cookbook, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere. Pick up one of the Bosh cookbooks or a copy of Vegan on the Go. But if you’re reducing your meat intake or looking for veggie recipes, there are worse places to look than this.

Click here to buy Veg Every Day!.

Cassandra Clare – Clockwork Angel | Review

Title: Clockwork Angel

Author: Cassandra Clare

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 496

Rating: 2.75*/5

Cassandra Clare – Clockwork Angel

I find it hard to pinpoint exactly what I didn’t like about this book. Perhaps it’s the fact that I disliked the majority of the characters (and that I also agreed with criticism I’ve heard before that Cassandra Clare just reuses her characters). Perhaps it’s because it’s supposed to be set in Victorian London but it still felt very American, with only the lightest description. I felt like I was being told that it was set in Victorian London, rather than being shown it. I think Clare was trying to tap into the steampunk trend with this one, but I don’t think she did it very well.

Perhaps it’s the fact that very little happens other than a big scene in the middle where there’s suddenly loads of action and then nothing again. Perhaps it’s the fact that as the reader, you’re supposed to give a damn about the “love story” between boring Tessa and dickhead Will. I just kind of hoped that one of them would die as I thought that might make it more interesting, but that didn’t happen.

I also got annoyed with the number of people smashing into rooms through windows. In the last Cassandra Clare book I read, it happened four or five times. It happened two or three times here, and it just irritated me. She had a few lines of dialogue attacking French people as well, which I’ve noticed in previous books. Nothing too serious I guess, just throwaway lines that imply that French people are all arrogant and that they’re all waiters, but it’s just not necessary.

Cassandra Clare

Ultimately, the previous Cassandra Clare books I’ve read have been like eating McDonald’s. They’re not fantastic, but they’ll do the job. This one was like eating cold McDonald’s after it’s been left on the side overnight. It made me wish that I’d just had a salad instead, it’s not worth the calories. In each of the books that I’ve read so far, I’ve felt as though it’s 100 pages longer than it needed to be. This one could have been cut down to a novella if all of the fluff was removed and we just got on with the story.

So as you can probably guess, I wasn’t too impressed with this one. In fact, the only reason I’ve got this far with Cassandra Clare’s books is that I’m buddy reading them with some YouTube friends. The problem is that the best of them so far have just been okay. With three okay books and one bad one, I’m just not sure if I want to keep going. I was hoping at least one of them would have been “good” by now. I’m going to have to have a think about it to decide whether I even want to keep going. It’s a big time commitment and I have other stuff to read.