Rainy Day Reads

Challenges:   Around the Year in 52 Books: A book with a dual timeline I’ve read a few books of Marchetta’s by now and all the rest of them got 3 stars out of 5. Books get 3 stars when I don’t actively hate them, so all of her books have been “fine” so far. But this one blew it out of the water! We follow Taylor, a young girl who lives at a boarding school mainly for young people who don’t have anywhere else to go. She tries to stay out of life and just get on with her existence, but when she is elected the leader of the entire underground network of the school she is forced to care. The students at the school have a war going on during the months when cadets come to stay for their outdoor training camp. Kids from the town join in and the 3 factions conduct a war strictly guided by the rulebook that has been passed down over the years. To be honest I was surprised at how vicious this war was and how it could take place without any of the adults knowing about it. ...

This was the most recent pick from my TBR Jar and I actually quite enjoyed reading this book.   It is the story of a young man, Tom, in his early 20s I believe, trying to get his life back together after having let it fall apart following the death of his uncle Joe. We hear bout how his family used to be close-knit, but after the death of Joe, everyone seems to be flailing. His father is drinking, his mother left with his sister, he pushed his friends away and screwed up big time with the girl he liked.  After taking a spill from a table cutting his head open and landing himself in hospital he slowly starts to pick up the pieces. I enjoyed seeing his life come back together. I got the feeling of how it used to be, both his family and his group of friends sticking by each other, and how everyone now seemed to be drifting apart. We see how he slowly changes from an angry, hurt, disillusioned young man into someone who takes responsibility for his actions and tries...

As you can tell from the title I DNF’ed this book. The story was about a young girl in what I believe was 16th century England. The summary said the book would detail how she was left alone and penniless on the streets of London and how she rose above that and came to be the king’s mistress. It had all the makings of a trashy period romance and I imagine it would have been almost like a “Gone With the Wind” in a different setting. And when I decided to pick up this book I felt like I was in the mood for just that. But moods change and once I had started this book I just wasn’t feeling it. At all. So I decided to put it down after just a few chapters.   What I did read was well written, but the main character of Amber really annoyed me. She reminded me of Lydia from “Pride and Prejudice”, petulant and selfish and feeling herself too good for her circumstances. She throws away everything to follow some random man who straight out tells her he won’t marry her, but she is just int...

This is the third and final book of the Lumatere Chronicles and as with the last two books I have mixed feelings about this one. There are a few spoilery bits, if you haven't read the other two books yet, but nothing major. As with the other books I had problems with the characters all along. Already on page 4 I was super annoyed at Finn. Yes, Isaboe has a strong friendship with Froi, but so do you! So why do you need to get all jealous about it and throw a hissyfit? And Isaboe is just so mean towards Quintana. Why does Quintana have to pay for her fathers sins? I just didn't really understand the characters' reactions a lot of the times and that made it seem like they were just dolls having whatever reaction was required at the time for the sake of the plot. The plot in this book seemed longwinded, much like the other books. I don't know if any of the storylines could have been cut without messing with the plot, but they all just seemed to progress so slo...

I was debating whether or nor to write a review about this book, as I don't feel like I have too much to say about it. But I wrote a review for the first book in the series, so I figured I should write for the rest of the series as well. Froi of the Exiles is the second book in the Lumatere Chronicles and it follows one of the lesser characters from the first book, Froi. He is off on a quest to another kingdom to seek revenge for events that unfolded before the story of the first book. The blurb on the back of the book is pretty vague, and I don't want to spoil anything, so I can't really go into great detail about the plot. Again, I have to say that like the first book, this one just didn't really interest me. It took me a long time to finish the almost 600 pages. Longer than I would like to think it would usually take me. Because the story just didn't click for me. The characters were again uninteresting to me and I felt like there were so many diff...

I had high hopes for this book. I bought the entire series based on the rave reviews I have been seeing everywhere. But unfortunately I was disappointed.  Beware of minor spoilers below! I have read some other books by Melina Marchetta, and I generally like her writing style. The story of this sounded great, too. An epic read in a fantasy universe where good battles evil with a little love thrown in for good measure. What's not to like? Well, the story was weirdly paced for me. I remember having read about 1/3 of the book thinking that it was moving quite slow. The objective of the quest (taking back the homeland) is pretty clear from the start, and I figured they would not have time to do it in this book, since it was moving so slowly. But that was okay, since this is a trilogy. Plenty of time to evolve the story. Wrong! After about 2/3 of the book the pacing picked up and before you knew it they were inside the gates! The battle that took place was not really described in great d...