Tag: book blog

Review: Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review3 Comments

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When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.
So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

I didn’t think I was going to read this book – I was just unsure that it was my thing as I’m getting older and my reading tastes are developing, but I’m so glad I did! It was a combination of loving The Upside of Unrequited and @bookish_and_proud (shoutout to Becky!) enjoying it that made me finally picking up, and it was definitely worth it.

“Imagine going about your day knowing someone’s carrying you in their mind.”

In some ways, this book was exactly how I expected it to be. It was angsty, cheesy and cliche, but I also loved it. I’m trying to be honest with myself here, and be honest with you guys too, so I’ll just come out with it. I really want to be cultured, and educated, and have an obsession with classics and other  books that will shape me as a person. But I honestly really love a good YA contemporary, so here we are. This book was my guilty pleasure in written form.

First of all, Leah. I loved her, she was so relatable and badass and I really found myself enjoying reading about her character. But I have to say, she was also incredibly…brash? I don’t really know how to describe her, but she really needs to learn to forgive and stop holding so many grudges. I get it, I can be like her as a person too, but sometimes it just annoyed me a little how she seemed to hate people for no reason (*cough* Wells *cough*).

“That has to be the best part of being in love- the feeling of having a home in some else’s brain.”

But that really has to be the only downside of Leah on the Offbeat, because I couldn’t help but love the rest. It’s cliche, but it also has a balance of deep, meaningful stuff which is really true about growing up. But what I really loved about these books was the laughter. I find it really, truly difficult to laugh-out-loud at books, but this one really tickled me. I kept having to stop and recite funny passages to my boyfriend.

On top of it being so funny, it was also so current! I found myself giving a little fist-pump when I saw Troye Sivan was mentioned. It warmed my heart at every single Harry Potter reference. I melted when I saw a reference to Six of Crows. I’m going to have to stop, because I loved this book so much I could go on and on about it, so I will say one last thing – I love how this book is in the same world as Simon vs. and The Upside of Unrequited. And I love how they’re not direct sequels, because there is no pressure to go back and remember what happened in Simon vs!

★★★★
4 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Crown (#5) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review10 Comments

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When Eadlyn became the first princess of Illéa to hold her own Selection, she didn’t think she would fall in love with any of her thirty-five suitors. She spent the first few weeks of the competition counting down the days until she could send them all home. But as events at the palace force Eadlyn even further into the spotlight, she realizes that she might not be content remaining alone.
Eadlyn still isn’t sure she’ll find the fairytale ending her parents did twenty years ago. But sometimes the heart has a way of surprising you…and soon Eadlyn must make a choice that feels more impossible—and more important—than she ever imagined.

So yay, this book is better? This series improved? I mean, looking back on my review of The Heir, not much could have been worse, but I’m very happy to say some of the better parts of The Selection series shone through once again in this book.

I’m very glad to say Eadlyn does improve, thank goodness. She loses at least some of her selfishness even though there were still many times when I rolled my eyes at her somewhat bratty statements that still pop up.

“He smiled. “You are always just Eadlyn. And you are always the queen.”

I guess I could say there was an element of surprise in this book, at least in some more ways than in The One. But saying this, I did know exactly how the book would end. Having spent 4 books getting used to how Cass writes, I kind of guessed what would happen even though the romance just wasn’t really developed. And that’s the disappointing thing, I shouldn’t have known what was going to happen. But it was so damn obvious anyway.

“You are everything to everyone. And infinitely more to me.””

But I have to say it, when Cass goes for the romance, she does it well. There was a few passages that touched my stupid romantic heart so much that I actually shed a few tears. And I couldn’t help but going back to how I felt with the first 3 books in some aspects…because this book is entertaining, easy to read and somewhat enjoyable. I wouldn’t say I liked it like the first 3, but it’s definitely better than The Heir!

★★★
3 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Heir (#4) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review9 Comments

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Princess Eadlyn has grown up hearing endless stories about how her mother and father met. Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won the heart of Prince Maxon—and they lived happily ever after. Eadlyn has always found their fairy-tale story romantic, but she has no interest in trying to repeat it. If it were up to her, she’d put off marriage for as long as possible.
But a princess’s life is never entirely her own, and Eadlyn can’t escape her very own Selection—no matter how fervently she protests.
Eadlyn doesn’t expect her story to end in romance. But as the competition begins, one entry may just capture Eadlyn’s heart, showing her all the possibilities that lie in front of her . . . and proving that finding her own happily ever after isn’t as impossible as she’s always thought.

Oh my god. Why oh why did this series carry on? I was so happy with the end of The One. I cried for gods sake! We really didn’t need to see 20 years on with America and Maxon’s bratty daughter. Okay, I’ve always heard people complain about narrators being annoying etc, but Eadlyn was another level. She is SUCH A BRAT. She spends most of her time complaining, getting massages, and sitting at a desk. I say sitting at a desk because although this book repeatedly says she is ‘working’, all I know her to do is sit in her room looking through forms from the Selected. All of these books have been about the Caste system and how important abolishing it was, yet all Eadlyn does is talk about how beneath her everyone else is, and how she is the best person in the whole world.

“You can be brave and still be feminine. You can lead and still love flowers.”

She’s selfish, self-centred and she even tries to get her brother to choose between her and the love of his life because she doesn’t want him to go. And SHE IS OBSESSED WITH TIARAS. She’s a princess, she can have all the tiaras in the world, and yet she throws a stupid baby hissy fit when a little girl in the palace (someone who claims is like a sister to Eadlyn), borrows one. When this book claimed Eadlyn’s obsession is like a hobby, I actually snorted with laughter. It really sounded so bratty.

“Most importantly, you can be queen and still be a bride.”

So Eadlyn was definitely the worst part about this book, on top of the fact it wasn’t needed. But at least she kind of gets better, I guess. I mean I started seeing tiny spurts of her good side towards the end of this book, and I’m just hoping the next one will be better and more hopeful.

★★
2 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The One (#3) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review7 Comments

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The time has come for one winner to be crowned.
When she was chosen to compete in the Selection, America never dreamed she would find herself anywhere close to the crown—or to Prince Maxon’s heart. But as the end of the competition approaches, and the threats outside the palace walls grow more vicious, America realizes just how much she stands to lose—and how hard she’ll have to fight for the future she wants.

I started this book rolling my eyes, and I ended it with tears slowly leaking out of them. I found the first half of this book completely different to the second half, as knowing there was five books I didn’t know how much more I could take.

All I could think of reading those first pages, was I can’t have this repeated for another 3 books. I can’t keep reading about the bitchiness and the indecisiveness. Whenever Celeste was bitchy or the girls fought I just wanted it to all be over.

“Break my heart. Break it a thousand times if you like.”

But the fact I hated this book at the start made the turn-around even bigger than I thought it would be! And when I did fall in love, I fell hard. It turns out, this book turned out so perfect. It wrapped up all the loose ends, it endlessly surprised me, and it had a great ending overall. This book really sounds like the last one of a series right? More on that in my review of The Heir.

“It was only ever yours to break anyway.”

I can’t help it, this series ended up stealing my heart. Of course it wasn’t without it’s faults, which were many at times, but the faults were outweighed by my love. Yes, these books are predictable in a way, but I did end up surprised. And even though these can be a little trashy, they’re so poetic. And I’m embarrassed to say this, but I actually cried a bit when I finished it.

So that proves that even though I didn’t enjoy all of this book, the hopeless romantic in me can’t help but loving it a hell of a lot

★★★★
4 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Elite (#2) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review2 Comments

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The Selection began with thirty-five girls.
Now with the group narrowed down to the six Elite, the competition to win Prince Maxon’s heart is fiercer than ever—and America is still struggling to decide where her heart truly lies. Is it with Maxon, who could make her life a fairy tale? Or with her first love, Aspen?
America is desperate for more time. But the rest of the Elite know exactly what they want—and America’s chance to choose is about to slip away.

What can I say? I finished this book in a day. I might have been sick and in bed resting at the time, but it’s still rare for me to get through books this quickly! I can’t help it or control myself, these books are so addictive even though I can still see the problems with them.

For one, not much happened? Which sounds weird to say because I got through it so quick, but even though not much happened I still enjoyed the slight plot. If I’m right in saying, this book started with 6 girls in the Selection and ended with 5. But I have to say, I did enjoy the other details, even if they seemed a little absurd sometimes.

“You know you’ve found something amazing, and you want to hold on to it forever;”

As with book one, America did kind of annoy me but I still can’t help but like her sometimes! But I have to say, predictability has officially gone out the window…yay! I can’t believe that I honestly didn’t know where this book was going, and I think that’s why I wanted to carry on reading so much.

“and every second after you have it, you fear the moment you might lose it.”

The love triangle thing does get a little old, I’m not going to lie. There were some times when I kind of wanted to push America off a cliff at points for not being able to decide what she wants. But even though America does annoy me, I can’t help but relate to her struggles sometimes. I’m a hopeless romantic and I couldn’t help but understand why she was confused sometimes.

So again, this series continues to win my heart in the end. I can’t help but love this book and I can’t wait to start the next one!

★★★
3 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Selection (#1) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review17 Comments

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For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.
But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.
Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

I just saw a review on Goodreads that sounds exactly how I’m feeling about these books. They’re like cookies that are really bad for you – you know you shouldn’t like them because they’re full of trash but you just can’t help yourself by eating a whole packet in one sitting. Credit to Taneika for that one!

So right now, I’m feeling incredibly torn over this book. For one, I never thought I would like a book with a girl called America Singer. America. And talking of America, this girl tears me in half too. On one hand, she is so damn indecisive and I know it’s going to annoy me a tiny bit throughout the whole series. But on the other hand, she has a kind and sensitive soul which shines through above all.

“I hope you find someone you can’t live without. I really do.”

I actually really enjoyed the caste system and world. It only has a small touch of fantasy and the palace and it’s grounds are pretty well described. I actually enjoyed how the world and history was described. I would have loved a map in the front of the book, but the history lessons were through dialogue and actual lessons the Selected took part in. I didn’t mind this, because it kept the lessons short and informative, rather than just long pieces of information.

“And I hope you never have to know what it’s like to have to try and live without them.”

Sure, this book was absolutely and utterly far from perfect. It should really be easy for me to say it was bad. But I can’t help it, it was so trashy I loved it. It was the kind of TV you know you shouldn’t watch but can’t help it. It was so predictable, cheesy, fluffy and other wrong things that I should be hating on it. But I can’t help it, these books are fun and quick to read and I have already read half of the second book.

Help me.

★★★
3 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review5 Comments

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Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.
Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.
There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

This book honestly really surprised me! I thought I was over cutesy YA romances like this but it turns out I can’t help but have a soft spot for them. And it also turns out that my friend Amy knows me even better than I know myself, because she sent this to me knowing how much I’d love it!

Before I start, this book isn’t perfect. I’d rather finish on the good, so I’m going to start with the little bad there is. Even though I enjoyed it, it is predictable and all of the characters have their…problems. For example, there was a few places that made me cringeeee. Basically, Molly (the main character), talks to her cousin Abby and the conversation almost suggests Abby is a slut because she slept with her serious boyfriend of 4 months. Why is that even a consideration? It’s up to Abby whether she sleeps with her boyfriend or not. If they were ready at 4 months, great. If they were ready sooner, great.

“You would matter. That’s the thing. I get into this weird place sometimes where I worry about that.”

But apart from a few little things, I did love this book. I had to put myself into my mind a year or two ago, but I couldn’t help but really enjoy this. It is exactly how I felt when I was Molly’s age and crushing. She felt so real to me. I love how much I could relate to her and her situation. Molly wasn’t perfect but who is? And this book was so diverse, with so many LGBT and POC characters! Sometimes I struggled to remember Molly was still growing up (I was a little more mature than her at the same age), but that was just her as a person, and I could sympathise with that.

“I’ve never told anyone this – not my moms, not Cassie – but that’s the thing I’m most afraid of. Not mattering. Existing in a world that doesn’t care who I am.”

Maybe this book says something about me, because I feel like I’m one of the only readers who didn’t find Molly a little annoying because I found her so relatable. I loved that Molly suffered with anxiety and that was part of her character. I loved that she was fat and that was discussed in relation to how she was feeling. I loved her addiction to Pinterest.

So overall, this book feels like a guilty pleasure to me. I just couldn’t help but fall completely in love with it. Molly is the perfect representation of a 17 year old girl with low self-confidence. Her story, and the stories of the people around her, brought tears to my eyes even though I kind of knew what was about to happen. If you love romance and have a secret obsession with contemporaries, please go and read this. It’s beautiful and perfect and includes many, many Mini Eggs. It’s the definition of cute and fluffy, but it warmed my heart so much.

★★★★
4 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review2 Comments

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A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.
The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister’s. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice. But now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever.
Welcome, welcome to Caraval…the games have only just begun.

I loved this book. But did it capture my heart? Not exactly, and that little fact makes me want to cry. You see, Legendary, for me, had a hell of a lot to live up to. Caraval was something extremely special, and it absolutely captured my heart. When I finished that book, I made mood boards and playlists. It made me feel like magic was really woven between the beautiful paper pages.

And although I still really loved and admired this gorgeous book, I don’t feel as though my heart has been captured right now. It’s really hard to describe what was wrong here, but I’m going to try. For a start, it took me a week to read. And yes, that’s a personal thing, and I have a lot on my mind at the moment, but I just didn’t feel as though I needed to be inside the pages of this book all the time. Trust me, there were parts when I couldn’t stop reading, but it wasn’t so constant.

“Her heart was still a little heavy,”

Let’s talk about the things I love. Well, I love Tella. I felt as though there has been enough space between the first book so I wasn’t too sad about missing Scarlett as a narrator, and I really liked Tella’s character. She just felt real – she had her own difficult decisions and confusion and she didn’t always know where her life was heading. I loved her struggles and her torture, because it made her the relatable and lovable girl she is.

I also really enjoyed the story and other characters. I liked the way Legendary explores Tella’s relationships and friendships with not just her mother but with many other characters. They provided a really interesting development for me, and I did want to read on to find out which paths Tella was about to choose. Can I just also mention something? THE LOVE. AHHH. Okay. So Garber still leaves me shipping couples, and the romance was definitely the best part of this book for me. God, Garber knows how to write romance and kisses.

“but she’d decided carrying it around would only maker her stronger.”

So thinking about all this, compared to other books, this one could easily be 5 stars. However, I can’t help but compare this to Caraval. And that makes me feel as though this series has just lost it’s vibrancy. I really wanted more vivid descriptions of the world and game itself, as I remember Caraval being very setting heavy. And that’s the reason why, I’m sorry to say, I’m going to give this one…

★★★★
4 stars

-Beth

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Review: Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review3 Comments

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Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? 
Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. 
With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

Wow, unpopular opinion much. I know there is much love around this series and I’m sorry, but my opinion seems to be the complete opposite of what everyone else thinks. Oops.

Oh my god. I didn’t think it could get any worse, but reading my review of Gemina, I think I actually liked this one even less. The bottom line is, I was just even more confused because there are way too many characters in these books! Let’s just have a quick throwback to me a couple of years ago when Illuminae came out. I was where everyone else was, fangirling over this new book with a completely new style of reading. I honestly think it was just so refreshing to read something so different, but since then, both books that followed just seem like retellings of the same world. I can’t help but feel that success, rather than love made the authors release the other two.

“May we meet again on distant shores.”

And another thing I hate about not only having so many characters, but also the camera surveillance way this story is told? I felt so damn detached. Yeah, this book is emotional and yeah, I loved the poetic parts. But I still don’t give a damn what happened. Sorry for my cold heart and black soul.

Like 80% (at least) of this book was just boring and I couldn’t focus. Only a small number of pages actually made me feel like I was invested or involved in the book at all. But on the other hand, this really small amount of pages…were awesome. I loved them, I felt completely in the world and I felt the emotion. And I guess I do have one popular opinion, because I LOVE AIDAN. Like, I flicked through the whole book looking for those black pages. I loved his parts, and I wanted so much more. If only the book was just AIDAN…

“Some place fine and far from here.”

But that’s where the good stuff ends, and other than that, I was so disappointed. I wanted it to all end so I could read better things. I’m glad I managed to finish this series, but that’s about it.

Well don’t let the fact that I disliked this one put you off – it’s such an unpopular opinion after all!

★★
2 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Last Place on Earth by Carol Snow

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review4 Comments

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Daisy and Henry are best friends, and they know all each other’s secrets.  Or, so Daisy thinks, until she wakes up one morning to find that Henry and his family have disappeared without a trace. Daisy suspects Henry’s disappearance is connected to their seriously awkward meeting the night before, but then she finds a note from Henry, containing just the words “SAVE ME.”  Deeply worried, Daisy convinces her unemployed brother to take her on a rescue mission into the California mountains. As they begin to home in on Henry’s exact location, they also start to find some disturbing clues… clues that call into question everything Daisy believes she knows about her friend.  Why is he so hard to find? What kind of trouble is he in, exactly? And most importantly, who is actually saving who?

To start, can we just take a look at this cover? I picked this up for myself as a little present for being accepted into university, and it was definitely a cover buy. But it actually didn’t disappoint – at least not completely!

This book is definitely a page-turner. It’s so quick and easy, I read it in a matter of hours and I never really read that quickly! It’s quite enthralling and entertaining, and I did really want to know what was going to happen in the rambling plot. Talking of the plot, it started really well. The first 50-100 pages completely captured my attention, and then things get strange. In fact, this book turns weirdddd. And I’m a little weird, but it might even be weirder than me. It just turned into something I wasn’t ready for, or expecting at all.

So this book ends up being just completely absurd. Without giving away a lot of spoilers, it felt incredibly strange and random and I was left almost laughing with the pure anti-realism of it all. It’s cool that Snow wanted to explore something unique and not really covered in YA, and in some ways I think it’s done really well, but also what what what.

Talking of weirdness, this book also includes a family called the Dunkles. This family has 7 children with names all beginning with K and they were, of course, home schooled. Can I just confirm, as someone who was home schooled for 6 years, WE ARE NOT THE DUNKLES. Some of us are actually pretty normal, and live in normal houses with normal, conventional families. And personally, I don’t want my home schooling years to be represented by the Dunkles.

After all that negativity, I still can’t say this book was bad. If you take it at face value and don’t expect a great work of literature or a masterpiece, it’s really entertaining. Sure, there are mistakes and plot holes and it’s certainly not perfect, but it’s a fun adventure all the same.

★★★★
3.5 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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