Rainy Day Reads

I started this book because I had heard so many good things about Donna Tartt's other books, especially “The Secret History” and “Goldfinch”. But this one was the first that came to my library, so I figured this would be equally good.   I recently did a post on why I find it SO hard to give up on a book even though I don’t like it. I decided that life is too short to waste precious reading time on books you are not really enjoying, and this book will be the victim of that determination! I’ve read 283 pages, just short of the halfway mark, and I just can’t get into it. Aside from the main plot point nothing has really happened yet, and that is just FAR too slow-moving for me!  The book is about a family in the American South. The son of the family dies under mysterious circumstances and more than 10 years later his youngest sister decides to try and find out what really happened. And that is pretty much the synopsis and pretty much everything that has happened so far. When

This book is yet another first in a series. It seems to be harder and harder to find a stand-alone these days! I can’t seem to find any information as to whether this is a trilogy or a longer series.   I had heard great hype about this book on Youtube. Everyone who has read it seems to love it to pieces. And once again I am left wondering. I wonder why I didn’t like this book as much as everyone else. Is it me? Am I too critical and hard to please? Maybe, but the fact remains that I was yet again disappointed in a book I had heard so many great things about.  The story is about a young girl, Evie, who gets sent to New York to live with her uncle after a spot of trouble in her hometown. It is set in the 1920s and we are treated to a quite vivid portrait of New York at the time, including the slang, which I thought was nice. It isn’t too hard to understand the slang, based on content, and if ever there is any trouble understanding, Evie fortunately has an uncle, who sometimes al

I’ve decided to participate in my first read-a-thon! I’m quite excited! On Youtube I’m subscribed to this really cool girl called Sara from SarawithoutanH ( Check her out! ) and she is hosting a read-a-thon along with another youtuber called Chami from ReadLikeWildFire .   When Sara presented this TBR I knew it was right up my alley. It’s all about finishing series you’ve started, but haven’t quite gotten around to finishing for some reason or other. The dates are September 27th to October 4th, both days included (which is actually 8 days!). Check out the announcement video here:  Announcement video There are no challenges to this read-a-thon, and that really appeals to me. I’ve never done a read-a-thon before, and this one seems like an easy one to get started. The only rule is pretty much to just read books in series you haven’t finished (or maybe starting a new series, if you are all caught up).  My TBR: My TBR for this read-a-thon will consist of one book. One

As you can maybe tell by my reviews on this blog I am hard to please when it comes to reading. I read many books, but I only like a few, and I only really love even fewer. I read different genres, although there are a few I tend to avoid, like thrillers and mysteries, but regardless of genre a book will captivate me if it has interesting characters and an exciting plot.   I always start any new book full of optimism hoping that this one will be a great one. Otherwise I wouldn't have started reading it in the first place. But I am often disappointed. I try to give the book a chance and read the first few chapters at least, before I hand down my judgement. But even if the book does not intrigue me after a few chapters I will still continue to read it. Why? Why do I keep reading when odds are I won’t enjoy the rest of the book, if I didn’t enjoy the beginning? The answer is I don’t want my time to be wasted. Now this may seem like a paradox. If I don’t want to waste my time, why

It has been a few days since I finished this book, and I must say it has not left a strong impression on me. I liked it well enough, but I didn’t love it.   It is about a boy, Jacob, who sees his grandfather dying. Before he dies, the grandfather gives him a mysterious message about finding the orphanage where he lived as a child and “warning them”. Jacob had seen pictures of the other children from the orphanage, when he himself was a kid, and his grandfather had told him that all the kids had special powers. As a teenager Jacob stops believing in his grandfather’s stories, but he goes to the island where the orphanage was in order to get some closure on his grandfather’s death anyway.  On the island he finds the old, abandoned orphanage, but he soon learns that not all is what it seems on the island, and paranormal adventures ensue.  As I said I liked this book. I thought the writing was good and the plot was well paced. When the book first came out everyone made a big d

This is the first book of a trilogy about a young girl NOT named Mara Dyer. It states in the beginning of the book that this is a false name, taken on the advice of a lawyer. Why this is necessary does not really become clear to me in this book, so I have to assume it will be explained in the next ones. The intro does say that it is because she reveals that she is responsible for “the murders”, but she doesn’t reveal anything to anyone but the reader in this book.   Anyhow, this book is about a girl, Mara, who wakes up in the hospital after an accident where her friends died. She doesn’t remember anything about the accident, but she has nightmares and hallucinations and suggests to her family that they move away from all the memories. She then starts over in a new school, having to deal with hallucinations and mental breakdowns on top of trying to make friends. She does make one friend on her own, Jamie, but he disappears unceremoniously in the middle of the book. She meets anothe

Stonehenge is situated 137 km outside of London. My friend and I went there in 2005, when we were doing our grand Interrail trip of Western Europe. Before we went I had heard that other people thought it was a bit anti-climatic. But I thought it was awesome! We booked bus tickets at the British Information Bureau, and there was a free audioguide included in the entrance fee. I think I have heard something about them having spruced things up a bit lately, so things might have changed. Be sure to check ticket prices, opening hours etc. before you head out. Here is a useful website:   http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/ .   At the site you are not allowed to walk close to the stones. When I was there there was a small fence set up around the perimeter of the site, and I think the closest you got was about 6-7 meters. But as the stones are pretty big that is plenty close to see history up close and personal. Try to come earlier or later in the day to avoid the

I bought this book for my "Travels in Books" series as this is set in Paris. Unfortunately for me it could really be set anywhere. It is a novel about the inhabitants of a Parisian apartment building, but it might as well be set in New York or London or anywhere else. Aside from the fact that it was useless for my series, I found it really boring to read. As mentioned it is about the inhabitants of an apartment building, and while I usually like this kind of book with a larger set of characters brought together in a confined space, this was really not the thing for me. The book focuses mainly on the concierge, Renée, and a 12-year-old girl, Paloma, who lives in one of the apartments with her family. The rest of the characters are seen through the eyes of these two, and they are unforgiving when it comes to judging others. This means that most of the characters seem really unlikeable and since I really didn't like Paloma or Renée either, I was stuck with a book full of u