Rainy Day Reads

I had high expectations of this one, because “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is my all time favorite book (along with “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen) and this one promised something similar.   Once I got around to it though, it turned out to be a meticulous diary of trench life, but instead of the intense emotions and philosophical ponderings on life of Remarque this was a rundown of the technical workings of the trench. It was one long list of “then this person got shot in the head, then we built another shelter, then these two people got blown up, then we laid out some barbed wire, then this one was shot in nose and bled out, then it rained and stuff got muddy.” I wasn’t very far into it when I gave up, because even 50 pages of that was just too much. It was weirdly cold and unemotional and he listed deaths with the same punctuality as improvements on their shelters. I flipped through the rest of it and it seemed pretty much the same so I decid...

I thought this book sounded really interesting, and I’ve been hearing good things about Katie Cotugno, so I decided to give this one a go.   This book is about Molly, who is returning to her hometown for her last summer before college. Returning to the hometown she fled from when her mother’s bestselling novel based on her life revealed all her secrets and turned her into a pariah.  Slight spoilers below.  As I said I had high hopes for this book, but they were not met. I really wanted to root for Molly but in the end I found her really annoying and frustrating. She ruined her relationship with Patrick when she hooked up with his brother, Gabe, wrecking her friendship with their sister Julia as well. She does nothing but describe how hard her life back in this town is because of her past mistakes, but then she makes the exact same mistake!! And keeps making it!! ARGH! I have never been in love, so I don’t know if feelings can actually make you that stupid,...

I decided to read this because it’s been in the back of my mind as one of those books that you ought to read. And I made a little challenge for myself this year to try and diversify my reading, theming the months of year and finding books to read to fit that theme and January was Jazzy January - books from the jazz age.   This book opens in the 1940s, but the majority of the story is set in the 1920s. We follow Charles Ryder, a young man beginning his studies at Oxford in 1923. His life so far has been pretty uneventful, solidly placed in the English upperclass with all the comforts belonging to that position. When he meets Sebastian at Oxford his life changes and he gets access to the world of the landed English gentry, when Sebastian introduces him to his family. Whether that was good or bad for Charles is uncertain.  Not a lot happens in this book plotwise. It’s more about the relationships between the characters and these are marked by absence, dislike and d...

This book follows Janna, an Arab-Indian American teen girl who is struggling with finding her place in the social life of high school and the mosque. She wears a hijab and that instantly makes her stick out at her high school, and when she tries to be a bit more “Western” it makes her stick out in the Muslim community. As she struggles to find a balance she must also deal with a predator who has set his sights on her, and as she slowly finds the strength to stand up to him, she finds new friends and loses some old ones along the way.   I’m a bit conflicted about this book, because while I liked the basis of the story, there was also a lot of things that I didn’t really appreciate. I listened to it on audio and I do feel like the narrator had a part in my not liking it too much. The narrator would over-enunciate everything and that would make conversations sound kind of fake and overly enthusiastic. Sometimes it would also sound really whiny, especially in Janna’s inner m...

The book: Initially this book was published as a serial in The American Magazine beginning in 1910. Already in 1911 however it was published in book form in both the United States and the UK. The initial publication in the magazine was apparently aimed at adults, and it was not as popular as some of the author’s earlier works. Only after children’s literature in general became popular during the past 50 years or so did it start to receive some notice, and these days it is often considered one of the best children’s classics of the world.  The author: Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was born in 1849 in England, and after her father died the family emigrated to The United States in 1865, where they settled in Tennessee. When she was 19 Hodgson started publishing stories in magazines in order to help with the bills at home. in 1872 she married and the couple moved to Paris, where they lived for two years. After this they moved back to the states and lived in Washing...

This book follows Lily who is not doing so well in chemistry class. In stead of taking notes she scribbles song lyrics on the desk. Next day she discovers that someone has continued the lyrics, and the two start a correspondence hiding notes under their shared desk. Alongside this exchanging of notes we follow Lily’s slightly chaotic home life and her trials at school struggling with the popular kids, and trying to overcome her awkwardness to ask her crush out.   This was a cute and fun contemporary, but nothing more really. It is pretty obvious from the start who the secret letter writer is going to be but I didn’t mind it too much. I really liked the person and when we got their backstory through the letters it made me really invested in them. It was fun to see Lily balance her opposing views of the letter writer in the letters with the person in real life once she found out who they were. As I said it was fun and cute, but not much more. I gave it 3 stars out of 5, maybe 3...

The Book This is Anne Brontë’s debut novel written under the pen name of Acton Bell. It was first published in 1847 and many believe that it depicts Anne’s own experiences as a governess. It deals with themes of oppression, treatment of animals, empathy and isolation, and at least one incident described in the book is based on real events (Agnes killing a nest of birds to prevent them from being tortured by the young boy of the family she is working for).  The Author Anne Brontë was born in 1820 and died in 1849. She was the youngest of the Brontë sisters and lived with her family most of her life. In her early 20s she worked as a governess, but after leaving that profession in 1845 she started writing. She wrote poems, which were published in a volume of poems written by her and her sisters, and she proceeded to write two novels, “Agnes Grey” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” before she died. All of these were first published under a pseudonym; Acton Bell. Her sis...

I wasn’t too thrilled by the sound of this book, but I actually ended up quite enjoying it.   This is the story about Delilah, a teenage girl who is having some trouble with her busy corporate mom. One night she climbs in her window after meeting a boy in the woods, only to find her mother waiting for her. Delilah’s estranged grandmother has died and the two must now travel to her lake house in order to take care of the funeral and sell the house. Delilah last saw her grandmother 8 years ago, having previously spent every summer with her grandparents at the lake house. But 8 years ago there was a big family fight and they left never to return. Until now. Being in the house agin prompts Delilah to go searching for the truth of what happened 8 years ago, but the people who know are reluctant to share.  I quite liked this book. It was a pretty fast read, and that might have been its biggest downfall. There is a lot going on in this book; rekindling old relationship...

When the movie came out a few years ago I was really interested but I somehow managed to never actually see the movie. So when I found the book on offer I thought “Now’s my chance.” This book is about a number of older people, living in Britain, but for various reasons unhappy about their lives as senior citizens. They don’t know each other beforehand, but only meet when they all decide to sign up for a retirement home in India, created in part by an Indian doctor living in Britain.  We follow these people in more or less detail throughout the book as they come to terms with how their lives have turned out.  I gave this book 3 stars. It was okay, but nothing major. There were a number of story lines, each starring a different person, but in the end I felt like none of the stories really materialized. There was just so much unfinished business and I feel like we left practically all the stories right in the middle. And I hate feeling unresolved. So it w...

This is the second and I assume final book of this series. Only read this review if you’ve read the first book as there are slight spoilers for “Six of Crows” ahead.   After the heist has been foiled our heroes try to regroup. There are massive obstacles in their way, but as always Kaz has a plan. He has many plans and I was constantly amazed by the long game he was playing. He always planned for any eventuality, which kept me on my toes throughout the entire book. There is a danger with books like this, that they become slightly repetitive and unbelievable, because of the sheer immensity of all these plans and eventualities. But that never happened in this book. The action is as breathtakingly quick as the last book, and the characters are even more developed and every single one of them had a place in my heart long before the book finished.  Even more gratifyingly my favorite ship set sail and sailed gloriously into the sunset by the end of this book and my co...

This is a book for all the fangirls and fanboys out there. A retelling of the classic tale of Cinderella set in the world of fandoms and conventions.   We follow Elle as she slaves away for her evil stepmother and two stepsisters while she waits impatiently for the reboot of her favorite sci-fi series as a film. She dreams about escaping her lonely life with her step-family and when a convention offers plane tickets to LA as a prize for a costume contest she decides to enter in the hopes of winning an escape from her life.  We also follow Darien, the actor playing the main character of the new reboot film. He is himself a fanboy and considers the job as an amazing opportunity. But the world around him only sees him as a vapid teen actor focused on looking good and getting money.  Both are headed for the convention, Elle to join the competition, Darien to judge it, and when they meet they realize a few things about themselves and each other.  ...

Challenges: Diversity Bingo 2017: Disabled Main Character This book has been on my TBR for a while, but I’ve been hesitating to pick it up, because it’s been SOOO hyped. I did also read Bardugo’s other work “The Grisha trilogy” or what it’s called these days, and wasn’t particularly fussed about it. But I have to say this book was way better than the trilogy and I can’t wait to pick up the second book.  In this book we follow a crew of thieves and outcasts who join together to perform a major heist. All the odds are stacked against them, but for some reason or other each person joins the crew and they set off in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles. The plot is insane, intricate and fast paced from the get go, but the characters are almost better. Every single one of them has a distinct voice and a well developed persona, and we slowly unravel their stories and see what has brought them to be outcasts in the first place.  As for representation there...

Challenges:   Read the World, South America This is the story of Irene, a young woman living in Chile under the military dictatorship. She is from the upper classes and while her mother struggles to keep up facades after Irene’s father has left them, Irene herself doesn’t really notice all the bad things going on around her.  Francisco is a young man brought up by immigrant parents who fled Franco’s Spain and are struggling to keep up their preferred way of life in Chile. Unlike Irene he knows exactly what is going on out in the real world and he does his best to try and help people. When the two get entangled in the fate of one young girl named Evangelina Irene’s naiveté is crushed and replaced by a desire to do something. What she does, with the help of Francisco, has farreaching consequences however.  This book started off pretty slow for me. I wasn’t really enjoying it because I felt like there was a lot of background story about pretty inconseque...

This is the prequel to "Code Name Verity" which I absolutely loved. So when this started bouncing around Booktube I knew I had to read it. We follow Julia when she is a young girl, she had her 16th birthday part near the end of the book. She returns to the ancestral home of her grand parents, a large estate sold off when her grandfather dies living massive debts behind him. While Julia's family is packing and organizing the last few heirlooms Julia strikes up a friendship with some local Travellers (can they be local when they are Travellers?) and gets herself involved in a murder mystery when a scholar cataloguing her grandfather's archaeological collection comes up missing. Julia is at the very center of the mystery as it slowly unravels dragging almost everyone into its nets. I really enjoyed this book. It gave me a slight Downton Abbey vibe which I am always down for, and had a real sense of nostalgia with the fading summer days and the unraveling of an ol...

Challenges:   Diversity Bingo 2017: Own voices In this book we follow two perspectives. We have Natasha, a young girl who is set to be deported to Jamaica with her family. Then we have Daniel, the son of immigrant parents from Korea. Natasha is desperately trying to stop her family from getting deported to a country she barely remembers, while Daniel is struggling to reconcile his family’s expectations with the life he wants to lead.  They meet, and with Natasha’s flight set to leave that same evening their relationship instantly comes with a timer that is running out quickly. Daniel wants to prove that love can happen in that time span, while Natasha is adamant that it cannot. For the sake of science she decides to give it a go, though. So while Natasha is meeting lawyers and Daniel is prepping for a Harvard interview they set about falling in love, scientifically.  I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. We had not only Natasha and Daniel’s persp...

Review: The Dawn by Elie Wiesel Challenges:  Read the World, Europe (hosted over on habitica.com )  This is the second book in the trilogy that starts with Night (review here ). The first book detailed the author’s experiences as a young boy in the German concentration camps during the war and this book takes place a few years after that. This seems to be a fictionalized continuation of the story. Elisha has come to Palestine and joined the Israeli resistance fighting for a free Israel. We follow him during one night when he is awaiting dawn when he must execute a man as part of the freedom struggle.  The book is quite short but it still packs a punch. We follow the musings of this young boy, who has literally been through hell, when he is about to be on the other side of the battle. He has some moral struggles, but doesn't really seem to question the fact that he will do it in the end. He seemed to acknowledge both that he had been brainwashed by his comra...

This is a book about Dennaleia, a princess who journeys to another country in order to marry the prince and secure an alliance. Once she gets there, she discovers she is more interested in the prince’s sister, however. As well as struggling with her feelings, her sense of duty to her country and trying to navigate new customs she is also trying to hide the fact that she possesses magic. Magic is considered a crime in her new country, so Dennaleia is doing all she can to suppress it, but it seems to be growing stronger at every turn.   It’s really hard to describe this book without giving too much of the plot away, so I will leave it at that. As for the world, it was a little confusing with all the different factions of people, but I’ve never had a great head for intricate world building, so maybe that’s just me. We follow both Dennaleia and Mare, the prince’s sister’s point of view, so we definitely get to know them the best. The rest of the characters all seemed a little flat...

This story follows two siblings who end up in a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1950s England. The NHS has just started, and being from the working classes, Larry and Miriam are given a treatment otherwise meant for the wealthy - rest. When they hear about a cure they are desperate to have it, but they pay a high price for it in the end.   I mostly thought this book was boring. Initially I thought the setting and the premise sounded really interesting. The rise of the NHS, a deadly disease, a close-knit community. But I did’t like the writing style or the characters, so that put me off big time. There wasn’t really too much of a plot and the author added bits and pieces of story and plot line from other characters that just seemed redundant. These other plots were not developed, so they ended up just being filler. At least that’s how it seemed to me.  I gave this book 2 stars out of 5. 

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 inn...

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...