My Goodreads Reviews

Hi everyone!

I have decided that for the moment I won't be posting all my Goodreads reviews up here. I'll only be posting the reviews where I have a lot to say about the book here.

However, my Goodreads account is here. You can also check upon my reading challenge by looking at the widget on the sidebar.

~Lucy x

The Striking but Fascinating Differences Between British and American YA

As an avid reader of all young adult and a reader of the yearly CILIP Carnegie shortlist, a realisation began to dawn on me. American and British YA are very different. I really like comparing things, so here it goes....

A Little History of The World ~ Review

A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a completely readable account of world history. E.H. Gombrich’s book is brilliantly written for ten year olds – and adults too. It’s written like an adventure, where history becomes exciting. A Little History allows its readers to be inquisitive without being patronized, and for me personally, I learnt about a lot of things I didn’t know about.

A Little History is brilliantly humane account of world history. Whether 10 or 110, I think this book is definitely worth reading.


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The British Tag

The tea is Clipper green tea & manuka honey.....mmmmmmmm

 

 

Hello everybody!

Today I bring you....the British Tag. I was tagged by Karin from http://karinjr.blogspot.co.uk

Top 5 Period Dramas

I really, really like period dramas. I love the costume, the houses (and if it's based on an Austen, the romance). I would like to say I'm pretty obsessed. So, without no further ado, here's my list.

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How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nothing has struck me more so than Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now. Nothing has felt so personal, so real. Daisy’s thoughts sounded like mine, and often I lapsed into thinking that SHE was ME, or I was HER. She did things which sounded like I would do, felt things which I would feel, and the only four strikingly different things from me and her is that 1: She is an American, 2: Her mother died giving birth to her and therefore she has a stepmother, 3: She is romantically involved with her cousin and 4: The Third World War has begun.

Also, the scenery is so similar to where I live. I’ve walked in woodland, down country lanes, swam in rivers. I know which plants are what and which birds are which. This makes the story even more personal for me, despite not living in a war zone, I felt like I knew the surroundings. This is what made me fearful. It made the story more realistic. It made survival and the war and everything seem like it could happen on MY BACK DOORSTEP, which is utterly terrifying, especially when you leave yourself to dwell on that matter.

After the end of Part Two, I couldn’t start to read any other book. I couldn’t write a review. I had to collect myself, and not cry in a crowded room. The ending broke my heart. I had literally no idea what to do with myself. (So I doodled aimlessly. That’s what I did with myself)

Meg Rosoff’s novel is one of the most powerful novels that I’ve read in quite a while. It is completely unmissable.

N.B: By the way, I don’t understand the issue with the incest. I felt that the book was more to do with survival, war, horror, hope, family, love, fear, anger, being scared, scared, scared and trying to fight your way through it than Daisy having sex with her cousin.


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Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have one and only motive for reading this book and that is Sam Clafin, or that guy who plays Finnick Odair in Catching Fire. He plays Alex in Love, Rosie along with Lily Collins. After I stalked him on IMDB, I found the trailer. And I found that the trailer looked pretty good. So I kept watching it, until I realised something I had to read the book.

It was OK. I liked the story enough to power through it in under a day, and I found the characters and their lives interesting enough. I think I liked Rosie the best, but then again… there was Divorced_1. However, I don’t think the format of the letters, notes and instant messaging worked. I didn’t feel that the instant messaging especially was written like instant messaging. Most of the time the writing felt like a traditional novel’s format minus the description. Also, having watched the trailers a billion times, I expected the book to be funnier than it was. It wasn’t. This is perhaps due to the distancing from the story due to the writing style and the fact it’s an epistolary novel.

While I enjoyed this book to devour in around twenty-four hours, it isn’t memorable.


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Girl Reading by Katie Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m trying to compile my thoughts about this book in my head. It’s not happening because I’m overcome, overcome at each individual story and the beautiful writing. And, I need to mention the complex characters and their relationships with other people in the story, whether or not physically absent (I’m thinking of Maria and Frances). Yes, I adored this book.

I loved the writing because it was unique, and brave, especially for a debut novel. I loved the fact that there weren’t any speech marks. Let me tell you it did take quite a long time for me to get used to it, but in the end I loved it. I felt like I was more there. It had the strange feeling, despite the third person narrative, that I was in that person’s mind, whether it was Maria, Gwen, Laura, Jeannie, Flossie or Rosie. Maybe it could be cheesy-ily said that I felt a certain connection with these women and girls in these stories. I think the characters I ‘connected’ with the most were Gwen, the twins, Jeannie and Esther.

My favourite stories were the Featherstone of Piccadilly and Unknown.


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Thou Shalt try to make this blog a better bloggity experience

Because this blog has become a dumping site for my GoodReads reviews. I mean, I fully had the intention of doing this properly, but that intention has slid a little...or a lot.

But isn't the best way to become a better blog is to know the writer? Surely it is, right? I mean, all good blogs are written by people, not robots.

Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I wasted a whole train journey reading this. Why did I dislike this book, you ask? Well, let's just say I wish I had left it on public transport.

Well, for one, the characters, for the most part were awful. There were three varying degrees of characters in this book.
Stage 1: Oh wow, these characters have substance! I feel for them, and at times they are pretty complex. These two characters Krysia and Georg Richwalder. I really appreciated how Jenoff tried to make Richwalder into somebody rather than a stereotypical Nazi.
Stage 2: These are the majority of the characters in this book. They had little or no character development, likewise, little or no character and yet they are meant to be important characters. For example, Jacob, Marta and Alek. I didn’t really have much of a strong opinion on them.
Stage 3: The most annoying character in this book was Emma. She had no real personality apart from the fact that she was incredibly innocent/ naive and stupid. She is constantly dropping things and jumping around the place. I was at a loss how she ever became a member of the Resistance – with such a vital job – as she was sure to give the game away.

Another thing which was badly done was the writing. It was so full of clichés it was hard to digest and it felt far, far too modern for 1939-1941. Emma kept saying Okay. No, this was not okay.

The plot, above all, was predictable, which I suppose was ok as I could read it quicker.I was pretty interested in it as often I couldn't put it down. However, the ending was ridiculous, silly and melodramatic.

I would say that the passing of time in this book felt that it should have been slower. A lot of time was spent reading about passages about how a month had passed since the last chapter. I suppose, I thought those months that passed could’ve been filled with foreshadowing, character development or what have you.

There was another thing that irked me. It was a blatant historical error. It is 1940-’41, when Germany is doing well in the war. Yet, Richwalder tells Emma that Germany was doing badly in the war… well, at that point they weren’t.


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Bridesmaids by Jane Costello
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is one thing I should stop doing now. I really shouldn’t limit what I read due to stupid connotations of genres of books.

My mind works like this: YES! Read classics, book prize winners, books that get nominated for the Nobel Prize! If you read these books you shall become a smarter person. People will listen to you more in conversations because you’ve read ‘those books’, and you’ll be an intellectual. You will, trust me.
NO! Don’t read chick-lit, thrillers, romps. You should be exercising your brain at all times. Don’t read what the masses read. Don’t! You’re an individual! Read that one, the one that’s a constant bestseller, that’s sold over 5 million copies, read it because it’s a so-called classic.
Young Adult? Teenage? Do you have to? I mean, no-one will think that you’re smart. But, if you have to, anyway – you are that age.

This is a very stupid way to think. You are limiting your possible enjoyment of books you’re just dismissing. I’m sure everyone who reads will have moments like this. I like to call these moments ‘Reading Demons’.

The problem is, even after reading this book, I had a conversation with people I deemed to be (Shock, horror) “smarter than me” e.g, read more classics than me. I was asked what I like to read. So, instead of launching into how I love The Book Thief, how I can read a Sarah Dessen book at any time, or how I just love Anna and the French Kiss, I just said, “Crap, really.” Which is not a great thing to say. It’s not a particularly great conversation starter, I know. But it was because I was embarrassed that my favourite novels are teenage fiction or romances. I was embarrassed because I couldn’t say War and Peace or something by Charles Dickens.

I’m going to say this again, this is a silly way to act, and it’s a silly way to feel – to be embarrassed by what you like.

And, so I’m going to say – unashamedly, that I really liked this book. Bridesmaids wasn’t flawless. Do I care? Nope, because I was engrossed in the story, the characters and I flew through the book. So, as we – I – have learnt in this long review that is not all a review, is to like what you like. To love what you love. And now, after I read this book and realised that chick-lit can be just as great as other novels I have read, will go by that.



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Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you read several Sarah Dessen novels, there are several things that they have in common. They are all pretty consistent, well written novels, which explore what it is like to be a teenager without being pretentious. While I enjoyed Halley’s story (took me ages to figure out how to say her name), despite her relationship with Macon and Scarlett’s pregnancy, this book just didn’t have the same effect on me as ‘Along for the ride’.