Rainy Day Reads

I’m kicking off a new series in which I will give 5 book recommendations based on a subject. And in honor of Halloween we are kicking off with monsters. I don’t read a lot of super scary books, but I still managed to find 5 books with monsters, although some of these monsters perhaps don’t fit the conventional monster stereotype. From "A Monster Calls" This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab This is part one of a duology. The story takes place in a dystopian version of our world. A city is divided between a corporation that deal out their version of justice, and a mob boss using monsters for his own gains. In this world monsters are created by bad actions - you hurt someone, you spark the creation of a monster. Both sides of the city are trying to control things in their own way, but when Kate and August get caught in the middle, the unstable equilibrium threatens to topple. Kate is the daughter of the mob boss, and she wants nothing more than to be as tough as he

Review: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier I’ve decided on a whim to try and read all of du Maurier’s work. I’ve only ever read Rebecca, before this one, and I really enjoyed it. So I decided it was time to get going on some more of the author’s works.  “My Cousin Rachel” is the story of a young man, Philip, raised by his bachelor uncle. They live a bachelor life on the uncle’s estate, which Philip is set to inherit . They are both pretty content with this way of life and see no reason to change it. The uncle, Ambrose, goes to Italy to nurse some sort of affliction and Philip stays home to tend to the estate. Then he gets a letter from Ambrose, stating that the latter is married, but he since he isn't feeling well, he is postponing his return and staying in Italy for another season. Philip then gets a frenzied letter from Ambrose urging him to come to Italy immediately. Philip does so, but is too late. Ambrose is dead.  From then on we follow Philip’s inner jo

Review: The Establishment and how they get away with it by Owen Jones This is a non-fiction book about the British establishment (essentially the government) and the connections that exist between the rich and the powerful across the country. It was first published in 2014, but it still rings true today, as I can’t imagine much has changed at all, let alone for the better.  Jones chronicles the many connections between politicians, media moguls, the police and the richest parts of the British elite. I found this really interesting and frightening. I’m not British, nor do I live in Britain, so you could say why should I care. But I can see these things happening all over the world, including in my own country (Denmark), at least to some degree. The extent to which the government is in the pocket of the rich is insane, and the way the population is manipulated into giving the rich more and blaming the poor and the immigrants is a masterpiece of deception. Anyone decent see

Challenges:   Around the Year in 52 Books: A magical realism novel Read the World: Europe (hosted over at habitica.com )  I just saw a video on Youtube about books you shouldn’t have read ( here ) and I feel like this was me and this book. I have followed Carrie   on Youtube for a while now and I really enjoy her videos and her personality, so when she came out with this book in 2016 I figured I would like it too.  It’s the story about a young woman who manages to negotiate her way out of her mother’s iron grip and try to create a life for herself doing what she really wants to do. We only meet this woman, Evie, after she is dead, though. She can’t get in to her personal heaven, because the secrets she has kept throughout her life are weighing her down. She must travel back and find a way to share her secrets with her loved ones in order to be able to pass through the door to heaven.  We follow her a s she journeys back to the world of the living to impart her

Challenges: Around the Year in 52 Books: A mystery This books centers on the disappearance of Bernadette. Through documents and chapters written by her daughter Bee, we follow the lead-up to the disappearance and slowly start to figure out why she would leave her family.  Once upon a time Bernadette was a famous architect, but due to certain events it seems she has gone a little mad. Not enough for serious concerns perhaps, but just enough to be labelled the kind of quirky the neighborhood could do without. In my opinion Bernadette seems to think herself above the people in her social circle, and practically considers herself at war with the other mothers at the school. When Bee claims her prize for getting top grades all year she announces that she wants a trip to Antartica with her parents. They reluctantly agree and we follow the preparations for this trip. Bernadette has over the years developed some form of social anxiety and has essentially outsourced her life

Challenges:   Around the Year in 52 Books: Epistolary fiction This book is perhaps not epistolary fiction strictly speaking, but it is definitely written in a different format. We have chat logs, reports from different officials, statistics and all sorts of other things. It’s a very visual book, and I think the format works well for the story.  In this book we follow Kady Grant. Her planet has recently been attacked and she has been saved and taken on board a space ship. However, the attackers are in hot pursuit and soon it becomes difficult to tell friend from enemy when a zombie-like virus and a willfull AI main computer throw some wrenches in the machinery. Being a skilled hacker Kady decides to figure out just exactly what is going on and what she discovers runs far deeper than she expected.  This story was action from start to finish, but peppered with great friendships, relationships, philosophical and moral musings and twisting plots. I loved Kady as a cha

Challenges:   Bingo Board 2017: Read For Whom the Bell Tolls Around the Year in 52 Books: A banned book Me and Ernest just don’t get along. I feel like I’ve read or tried to read a bunch of his stuff, but it just isn’t for me. I put this book on my bingo board because I’ve been wanting to give him a second chance to woe me, seeing as he is considered a great writer of classic books. But no dice. I still didn’t like his writing… This book is about the Spanish civil war era and we follow a young idealistic American who has come to fight with the republicans. He is a dynamite expert (I’m sure there’s a fancy name for that?) and he is sent into the mountains to meet a small group of rebels who will help him blow up a bridge in preparation for a battle that is being planned.  He meets the rebels and honestly that’s as far as I got. I just could not stand the writing style. The dialogue was incredibly stilted and formal going something like this:  I’m here to blo

The Book This is not actually a book as such, but a play. It was written in the 1950s and uses the backdrop of the Salem witch trials in the 17th century to highlight the issues of the modern day communist witch hunt during the McCarthy era. The first staging of the play was not all together successful, but it still won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1953, and in a later production the play found its stride and became the classic we know today.  The story of the play is based on real people and real events, but Miller has taken some liberties and fictionalized and changed some things, including changing ages of the people and lumping more people into one character.  The Author Arthur Miller has written a number of plays, many of which are considered modern classics, including “The Crucible”, “Death of a Salesman” and “All My Sons”. He was born in 1915 in New York City and lived to be 89 years of age. He was particularly well known to the public in the 1940s, 1950s

Challenges: Around the Year in 52 Books: A historical fiction I have been meaning to read this classic for a while (that’s why it was on my TBR obviously), but I’ve just never gotten around to it until now.  This book follows Scarlett, a young (very young!) lady in the American South during the Civil War in the 1860s. Before the war starts all she wants is to find a good husband and get married. When she can’t have the one she wants she throws a fit and marries someone else in a rage. And this is really the crux of her character. She is selfish and vain, and continues to be so, even in the face of all the struggles the war puts her through. At first I felt like I really couldn’t blame her, she is after all VERY young (15 at the start of the book I believe) but after a few years of hardship and misery, and seeing young men cut down in their prime on the battlefields and languishing away in hospitals, still all she cares about is how she looks in her new hat. So I got ti