Does it count as reading if it’s a graphic novel?

When someone tells me they are reading a book, I imagine a 200+ page novel with writing taking up the whole page on every page. You?

Often with BookTube I will be watching a video and someone will say they  have read 15 books that month and I  will think “wow, that’s loads”, usually though it turns out that they have “read” a lot of graphic novels, and I’m disappointed.

From my point of view, a graphic novel is essentially a longer/bigger version of a comic. Most people would say they “read” a comic however, so is it fair to say the same with a graphic novel? Or is it fair in some contexts but not others? Fair in the general population but not on BookTube for example?

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Book Review- Redemption Road

Title- Redemption Road
Author- John Hart
Published-  2016
Genre- Crime, mystery
Length- 433 pages
Rating- 3/5
Synopsis (Amazon)- Elizabeth Black is a hero. She is a cop who single-handedly rescued a young girl from a locked cellar and shot two brutal kidnappers dead. But she’s also a cop with a history, a woman with a secret. And she’s not the only one.

Adrian Wall is finally free after thirteen years of torture and abuse. In the very first room he walks into, a boy with a gun is waiting to avenge the death of his mother. But that is the least of Adrian’s problems.
He was safer in prison.
And deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, a body cools in pale linen. It is not the first to be found.

This is a town on the brink.

This is Redemption Road.

Brimming with tension, secrets, and betrayal, brilliantly evoking an America of small towns and remote landscapes, of the abandoned, the derelict and the desperate, this is a novel so chillingly suspenseful and a story so full of twists and turns that you simply cannot stop reading. It marks a new high point in the writing of this bestselling master of the literary thriller.

Review- I received an ARC of this book from the publisher so thank you to them.

This book is a little difficult for me to review as the genre  is one that I have realised I am not that keen on. That however, has no bearing on how good or bad the book actually is.

Book Review- Penance

Title- Penance
Author- Kanae Minato
Published- April 6th 2017
Genre- Crime, mystery, thriller
Length- 240 pages
Rating- 3.5/5
Synopsis (Amazon)- When a group of young girls are approached by a stranger, they cannot know that the encounter will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Hours later, Emily is dead. The surviving girls alone can identify the killer. But not one of them remembers his face…

Driven mad by grief, the victim’s mother demands the girls find the murderer or else atone for their crimes. If they do neither, she will have her revenge. She will make them pay…

Review- I received an ARC of this from the publisher so thank you to them.

The story is told by five people, the four young girls who were with Emily the day she died, who are now adults, and Emily’s mother. The way the accounts of these five people are written is very unnatural and feels forced. Each one of them is talking to someone in one way or another, in writing, in a speech etc. Much of what they say in these accounts people  just wouldn’t say in some of the situations they are in, it would be better if the accounts were told in some other format.

Book Review- Etta and Otto and Russell and James

Title- Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Author- Emma Hooper
Published- 2015
Genre- Contemporary
Length- 278 pages
Rating- 4/5

I’ve gone. I’ve never seen the water, so I’ve gone there. I will try to remember to come back.

Etta’s greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to water.

Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently – and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto.

Review- I received this book as my March book from my subscription service, The Willoughby Book Club.

Whenever I get my subscription book I look at the reviews before starting it. This one had quite mixed reviews, some people seem to absolutely love it, and others hate it, claiming that it is unrealistic. It is unrealistic, incredibly unrealistic, but it is still a wonderful book.