One of my most FAQ of 2016 was "how do you read so many books?" Maybe the 9-page count ^ has something to do with it XD
2016 has been a real mix[image]
One of my most FAQ of 2016 was "how do you read so many books?" Maybe the 9-page count ^ has something to do with it XD
2016 has been a real mixed bag of highs and lows for me, both with books and in "real life". This year saw the birth of my baby boy, and a more permanent move to the United States. But I also dealt with a cancer scare and, of course, there has been an increasingly disturbing political climate in both my home country and my current country of residence, as well as the deaths of many wonderful people.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it or turn it into a lighthearted joke: this year has hit me very hard. I know it has hit others a lot harder. Recent events have soured previously enjoyable places like Goodreads; the online atmosphere has become more poisonous. I sympathise with Anna's sentiments: something as simple as sharing my bookish opinions with other book lovers has become a daunting exercise. I triple check every review, looking for things that people might use against me. I don't know what there are more of right now: those out looking to anger and offend others, or those ready to be offended by everything they don't agree with.
A couple of years ago, I was angry at Goodreads and even joined alternative sites like Booklikes and Leafmarks, but I never felt like I wanted to leave. Not really. I was always desperate to get back to GR. This is the first year I've really considered it. The first year I've dropped offline for a few weeks and felt... relieved. But I plan to stick around for now. Beneath all the shit, there are a whole lot of wonderful people on GR. I have friends all across the globe because of this place. I'm not exaggerating when I say that GR has literally changed my life.
I hope 2017 will be better for all of us. Thank you to all the people who continue to make me smile and support different opinions. I'm sorry if I was a bitch to a book you loved, but remember always: They All Saw a Cat.
Okay, I don't intend to review all the picture books I'm currently reading to my baby boy but I just had to say something about this one. This is suchOkay, I don't intend to review all the picture books I'm currently reading to my baby boy but I just had to say something about this one. This is such a simple, beautifully-illustrated idea and yet it contains a lesson that EVERYONE should learn. About cats; about books; about the whole world.
It was actually my boy's Daddy who first read this to him and, I must say, perfectly demonstrated the point of the book in a rather amusing way.
Dad: That book was lame. It was all about a cat. Mum (me): Actually it's very clever. It's about how the same thing can look very different from other people's perspectives. Rather like how I looked at this book and saw an important message and you looked at this book and saw a lame story about a cat *smug smile*
God, I'm annoying.
But seriously, I loved the subtle way this book shows how perception changes from one individual to the next. It teaches about different perspectives and opinions, as well as teaching empathy - the idea that the world (a cat, a book, etc.) looks very different to someone who isn't you. Because everyone in this book saw a cat, but they did not all see the same thing.
[image]
[image]
And I think the idea that there isn't just one way of looking at the world, that other people have different and valid perspectives, is something we would all do well to learn. Whatever age we are.
hitting enter after every word does not make it poetry.
Or maybe it does these days. Between the highly praised Lang Leav and this latest Goodreads Choice fhitting enter after every word does not make it poetry.
Or maybe it does these days. Between the highly praised Lang Leav and this latest Goodreads Choice finalist, I guess these emo tumblr quotes are the modern version of poetry.
Call me old school, but I kind of expect something more. Some of these sentences are nice, sure, and some of them tickle the inner emo that lives inside us all, the one that occasionally makes us stay up late sobbing over Elliott Smith songs (oh wait, that's just me?) but come on, is this really the best we have to offer up nowadays? At a time when we just lost the wonderful Leonard Cohen, I can't help feeling sad at the direction poetry is moving in.
Consider these by Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.
Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this The fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah.
And then this:
the princess jumped from the tower & she learned that she could fly all along.
How is that even a poem? It's just a badly-punctuated sentence that sounds kinda cool. Put it in a pretty cursive font and it would get so many reblogs on tumblr.
If you came here because, like me, you thought the whole feminist aspect sounded really interesting, I recommend you check out the witty and darkly comical Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty instead.
“She's a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.”
What a weird little book. The Vegetarian is somewhere between Syl
“She's a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.”
What a weird little book. The Vegetarian is somewhere between Sylvia Plath and a Kafka-style allegory, though I'm surprised so many readers saw it as a descent into mental illness - it seemed more about quiet, stubborn rebellion against restrictive expectations to me.
The first part was most compelling. Yeong-hye's husband takes pride in having a very subdued and unextraordinary wife. Her ability not to make a scene and be, well, "normal" appeals to him. But things start to change when she wakes from dark, gruesome dreams and declares herself a vegetarian, something which goes against the cultural norms of her society. Her husband and family see her decision as shocking, unacceptable, even indecent.
It was easy to speed through this first part, narrated by Yeong-hye's husband. He is such an asshole - resorting to abusing and raping Yeong-hye - that my anger kept the pages turning. Her father was equally repulsive to me, striking his daughter because she chose her own path. This part was also the most atmospheric, for me. It was dark, occasionally creepy, and I felt for Yeong-hye as her life became ever more stifling.
It was after that, in the second two parts, when this story lost something. The atmosphere wasn't as charged, the plot became weirder and porny, and my interest waned. I read through to the end because it was only a short book, but I can't say I loved it.
Additionally, I know this is supposed to be all allegorical, but I just found it so strange that Yeong-hye was painfully thin and starving to death because she turned vegetarian. Clearly not a very good vegetarian.
An absolutely stunning book of art. It's a hard book to categorize and my shelving is somewhat misleading. It's neither graphic novel nor fairy tale rAn absolutely stunning book of art. It's a hard book to categorize and my shelving is somewhat misleading. It's neither graphic novel nor fairy tale retelling, exactly, though it does contain both graphics and fairy tales. Shaun Tan has crafted 75 beautiful sculptures to represent 75 Brothers Grimm fairy tales, with little snippets from each fairy tale on the adjacent page. Each sculpture is quite simple, but thoughtful and perfectly atmospheric. I must admit that I don't check out that many books of art - so I don't know what to expect from this world - but to me at least, this was unlike anything I've ever seen.
It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted.
TW: rape.
Ooh, this is a toughie. I have
It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted.
TW: rape.
Ooh, this is a toughie. I have a lot of mixed feelings about Alderman's The Power. It's an intriguing and clever concept, but this never really translates into an engaging story.
Imagine if one day, suddenly, girls developed a strange physical power: they can produce electricity inside them. They can use this power to hurt, to torture, and to kill. A world that is built on patriarchy is suddenly upturned - being a woman is synonymous with power and strength, men are the ones afraid to walk alone at night, the female body itself becomes an instrument of power.
With obvious nods to rape culture, The Power imagines what the world would be like if men, not women, had to live in constant fear for their physical safety. Alderman considers how this would affect a variety of people and issues, from terrorism to religion, and she does this through the eyes of four very different people.
There's Roxy, a white British teenager and the daughter of a gangster. There's Allie, a mixed-race girl who runs away after years of abuse and finds herself at a convent, revered as some kind of goddess. There's Margot, an American mayor and one of the few older women to develop the power. And then Tunde, a young Nigerian man and aspiring journalist who captures early footage of the power in action.
The four perspectives are unequal and uneven, with certain perspectives being much more interesting for part of the book and then becoming tedious, and others doing the reverse of that. Some of the characters verge on cliches and stereotypes too. Additionally, the whole novel uses a research/book proposal as a framing device - a guy called Neil writes to Alderman with the draft of his work attached - which is interesting, but the book does actually feel like a piece of research at times.
I felt like most of the book explored a concept without telling a story. After the initial discovery of the powers and the subsequent affect on the world, the book kind of stalled, and lots of chapters felt dragged out without purpose or direction. Allie's perspective became deeply entrenched in religion, more so than was interesting, and I quickly lost interest in where the other POVs were going.
Also, some parts seemed a little too simplistic. I honestly don't believe that Saudi women would embrace rebellion so readily and to that extent. The notion that Muslim women are just waiting to throw off their clothes, riot in the street, and have casual sex seems like a blinkered "Western" perspective. Sure, maybe this would evolve over time if Saudi women had power, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone would cast off centuries of cultural practices in a matter of days.
The Power is a real mixed bag full of fascinating ideas, lack of focus, over-simplified male/female power dynamics, and some clever subversive scenes. I particularly liked the part where one woman claims that some boys "secretly like it", a play on the notion of "asking for it" in rape culture.
A hard book to rate. I wonder if it would have made a better short story.
"For eight months we were afloat in amniotic snowfall, two rosy mittens resting on the lining of our mother. I couldn’t imagine anything grander th
"For eight months we were afloat in amniotic snowfall, two rosy mittens resting on the lining of our mother. I couldn’t imagine anything grander than the womb we shared, but after the scaffolds of our brains were ivoried and our spleens were complete, Pearl wanted to see the world beyond us. And so, with newborn pluck, she spat herself out of our mother."
A bit too arty and lacking in plot for my tastes.
I was immediately intrigued when I saw Mischling on Netgalley. Despite having read so many Holocaust stories, this one sounded like it would bring something very different to the table. Josef Mengele's "zoo" has always been an object of morbid fascination for me and, I assume, many others. The cruel experiments conducted on twins and other multiples never cease to be repulsive and frightening. So a story about two such twins who are torn apart by this horror sounded like an emotional read.
But that's just what it isn't - an emotional read. I know it's a bit distasteful to say that about certain subjects - the Holocaust, slavery, 9/11, to give just a few examples - but the author writes like this book is a language exercise, not a look at one of the darkest times in modern history. Perhaps it is even more jarring because, for the most part, it is narrated from the perspective of two twelve-year-old girls, which makes it especially odd when it is very Creative Writing 101.
"Since Pearl’s disappearance, I’d noticed that animal life had become increasingly rare in Auschwitz. There was little hope of any arriving just because I wanted it to, and when no bird appeared, I put one there with my mind. In its beak, I made it carry a sprig of olive branch. But the bird kept dropping it. Even my own imagination, it seemed, had abandoned me."
And, cold as it may seem to say this, Mischling is actually a very by-the-numbers Holocaust story, familiar and predictable. Sure, the writing is flowery and experimental, but the story itself gives nothing new. I feel like very little research went into the book and everything that happened is stuff we all learned in high school: Separation of families upon arrival at Auschwitz, starvation, gas chambers, etc. I was hoping to learn something new about Mengele and his work, to be taken to new places, and yet all I got was a headache as I attempted to fight my way through the dense prose.
It's boring, to be honest. The lyrical writing doesn't seem to suit either the subject matter or the narrators at all. In fact, I feel like it is working as a mask - a pretty way to dress up a story that is nothing new; a plot that is nonexistent. The blurb basically tells you everything that happens. I know some readers enjoy the exploration of language first and foremost, and this book will probably be more suited to them, but it was not for me.
I've heard some different opinions on the two parts of the book - some reviewers saying that the second half (after the liberation of Auschwitz) picks up, others saying that their attention waned at that point - but I found them both equally tedious. The ending is neat and simplistic too, wrapped up in a message-shaped bow.
This is a story about a woman who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly.
Depressing as hell. But I enjoyed wallowing in
This is a story about a woman who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly.
Depressing as hell. But I enjoyed wallowing in it for a while.
My Name Is Lucy Barton covers a life story, poverty, abuse, art, marriage, the AIDs epidemic and subsequent fear, and a difficult relationship between a mother and daughter, all in less than two hundred pages. It's quite emotionally exhausting for such a short book but - perhaps because I had so few prior expectations - I found myself completely immersed in the story.
All of the aforementioned themes are framed around Lucy Barton's stay in the hospital after an appendectomy results in complications. Her estranged mother visits out of concern and around this visit, through conversations and journeys into both the past and future, Lucy's life and relationships are revealed.
There are some truly heartbreaking scenes scattered throughout this short novel, with the ultimate focus being on family and the breaking and tying of familial bonds. I now completely understand why many of my friends call Olive Kitteridge depressing without any ray of light or hope in sight. I don't think this is quite that bad, but thinking back on the parts that drew emotions out of me, I realise that all of them were sad.
A really quite beautiful novel, but read it when you're in a happy place.
"He's out there," I say, turning back to the window. "Always watching. Getting stronger."
And the Trees Crept In is a chilling read perfect for Halloween, or just anytime you want to not sleep.
I, of course, started reading this book at night. Being the fearless reader that I am, I shrugged my shoulders and went to bed afterwards with only one glance inside the closet just to be sure it was empty. Okay, maybe two glances. The real challenge came in the middle of the night when I needed a glass of water. I must have turned on every single light in the house on my trip downstairs. It was almost as if I could hear the same creaking in the walls. Almost as if the tree branches outside the window had taken on a humanoid shape.
This book is one of the few truly scary books I have read. It has a lot of classic horror elements - woods, old houses, dolls, the occasional mirror - but the story turned out to be far better than I expected. It kept me guessing right up until the very end.
It opens with a short prologue, followed by Silla and Nori's arrival at their aunt Cath's manor house - a house that has been in the family for generations. Gradually, we will learn why they are there and what they have come from, as well as what happened to Cath and their mother all those years ago. This unfolds in torn journal entries and notes alongside the present story of their time inside the house - Cath's insanity, the girls' hunger, the creeping woods, and the strange boy who seemingly appears from nowhere. Silla must work out what is happening and protect her mute sister from the house's many demons.
There is an increasing feeling of hysteria and panic as we try to pull apart the weirdness and work out whether the woods really are moving towards the house, or whether Silla's unreliable narrative is becoming increasingly influenced by madness. Is the Creeper Man real? Or is he the invention of children's minds?
I'll be honest: the book gets very strange before it eventually makes sense. But I promise that it does make sense in the end. The frightening, confusing sequence of events leading up to the final revelation will probably disorientate you and have you thinking "what the hell is going on?" but it somehow works.
The author creates a claustrophobic world where horror is impossible to escape because it exists at every turn. In the woods outside the house, in the dark corners of the house itself, even in Silla and Nori.
I get why people like the LGBT coming-of-age story, but the artwork was really bad. I couldn't get past it. Another reviewer said they were surprised I get why people like the LGBT coming-of-age story, but the artwork was really bad. I couldn't get past it. Another reviewer said they were surprised it was still readable despite the author's inability to draw - honestly, for me, it wasn't.
Loading...
