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My only books were women's looks
Trying to move from GoodReads. Hope this site is a good fit!
Currently reading
The Two Krishnas: A Novel
The Diviners
My Blue Notebooks PA: The Intimate Journal of Paris's Most Beautiful and Notorious Courtesan
Matched
I think the reason we like dystopian fiction is that at the heart of it, these stories are all about stripping away the artificial and imposed to get to what is true and real, that at their best these stories are about two people fighting for something real, fighting to feel something real, fighting for their own hearts and their own choices. About not going gentle into that good night. Matched is that kind of story. And somehow it struck me as beautiful.
Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)
I picked this up to see what all the fuss was about, got bored halfway through, and left it until I saw the movie.I had to put this book down a few times because I was laughing too hard. And not when Meyers intended me to.However, I think I've discovered the root of its popularity.Meyers writes like a 14 year old girl. The melodrama! The purple prose! The sparkles! I can see how this appeals to young girls: most girls are insecure as teens, who doesn't want a beautiful, all knowing guy telling them they are amazing? Sadly, the sheer creepiness of Edward and Bella's relationship kind of cuts down on the hilarity. (And it is hilarious)because the one thing Meyers does well is depict that kind of unhealthily obsessive teenage love. They are literally each other's lives. Bella is willing to give up everything for him. Not to mention the whole little detail of how he breaks into her room and watches her sleep for a month before they're even together. Do we really want to teach girls that stalking is romantic? That a girl has no self worth or identity beyond the man she loves?
On the Edge (The Edge, Book 1)
A coworker of mine lent me this. It's not the kind of book I usually read, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I loved the chemistry between the hero and heroine, and the worldbuilding was great too.
Paper Valentine
Yet another book I probably wouldn't have read if not for Book Club,mostly because I really disliked it for the first chapter or two. But I'm glad I needed to soldier on, because I ended up really liking it. I loved the phrasing and the strong atmosphere. I loved the portrayal of the relationship between the heroine and hero, the description of how new and amazing liking someone, maybe loving them, can be, the weird and wonderful chemistry of it all. I loved the idea of Lillian's ghost being all the worst parts of her.
One Night of Scandal
I never read old school romance like this, but I picked this up on a whim at the user book store while looking for a romance recommended by a friend, and it was actually a lot fun. Sure it had the purple prose and unbelievable plot points but i did like both the hero and heroine and the sexy bits were sexy.
Days of Blood & Starlight
Wow. This was a hard book to get through both length-wise - it's about 500 pages, after all - and subject-wise - there's so much war and torture and death and hopelessness. It took me a little bit to get into - with the multiple POV shifts and the unorthodox chapters (the shortest few are only one paragraph long, some in the beginning are made up of e-mails), which is a lot different from the first book.As far as the plot went, it wasn't what I expected from the first book, and I don't know if I would read it again, but it worked as a logical extension, and it had some beautiful, beautiful lines.
Pistols For Two
This was really fun. I mostly read a story a night, which was the best way to do it. Taken in one go, they got sort of repetitive, bu tone by one they were a lot of fun. I loved the story about the young friends in love with the same girl best.
Duel of Hearts
I borrowed this book from a coworker and I thought it was a lot of fun! It did have some plot issues - the random subplot introduced to get the characters together,for example. And it was a bit annoying how both the hero kept insisting the heroine must love the despicable rake who was creepily possessive of her. But other than that, I really liked all the characters, and Heyers influence was really obvious, especially in the dialogue and slang. A fun, frothy read.
A Certain Slant of Light
I listened to the audio version, and it was lovely. I loved the narrators (I think her name is Lauren Melling) voice, the way her voice sounded like she was smiling sometimes. It really fit the wonder and joy in certain scenes. I loved the writing, it was so beautiful and lyrical. I loved the way Helen spoke so formally, still with the conventions of the age she lived.
Every Day
I didn't have a lot of time to finish this before book club. I had today off, and I figured I'd be able to make a sizable dent in it, because people had told me it was a quick read. Well, I ended up finishing it in just a few hours. I really liked it. It was a fascinating concept - can you love someone who is a different person (on the outside) every single day? I really liked the way the author set about answering that question, and I liked the answer that he came to. I thought the book ended just the way it should. And he also raised a lot of other interesting issues about physical appearance, gender, sexuality, family, the way we treat others, and the meaning of a life.
The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle)
This book was very dense, but in a good way. It was one of those nice dense novels you can snuggle up to, like a thick, warm blanket. Which may be a bit of a strange metaphor, because at times it was also so strange, and dark and heavy with anticipation and something huge and otherworldly looming that I had to put it down for a while. It took me a while to get into the groove of having so many narrators, but I think it worked, and I appreciated how you got a view of all the characters both through their own POV and others’. It wasn’t until the last five chapters or so that it morphed once and for all from a book that you take your time with, where I loved the characters and the mood and atmosphere, into a book that I couldn’t put down. And then somehow, by the last chapter, maybe even the last few pages, the characters I’d enjoyed had become old friends, characters I’m definitely looking forward to spending more time with in the next two books.This was definitely unlike other things I’ve read.
Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy
I've been looking forward to this book for so long! It's funny how these days we can follow a book basically from the time it's picked up for publication until (a year or more later) it's actually released. But somehow, I still didn't really have much of a idea about what to expect here. There were some parts that I had to get used to, since I wasn't really sure what to expect. I know SRB has talked about how she was inspired by Gothic literature, and girl reporter stories, and certainly it reminded me of both of those, what with the old manor presided over by the mysterious old family, and well, Kami being a girl reporter, but it actually reminded me a lot of two very different books.One is 'Being of Two Minds', by Pamela F Service, which was another book about a girl and boy with a mental/emotional connection like Kami and Jared's. It was one of my favorite books as a kid. The is a series, and I guess I can't mention it without slight spoilers, so I guess I'll move on here.Anyway, despite the fact that the ending has me dying to read the sequel - this definitely ends in a way that packs a punch and leaves you reeling! - I really liked it. I loved the concept. It made me laugh, it made me rage at the pages, it made me do a Big No...it was a lot of fun to read, and also it felt a bit like a comfort read, because I loved the characters. I was going to start listing my favs, but it basically just became a list of four of the main characters...I'm not sure if I liked it as much as her Demon's Lexicon books, because the character's don't seem as three-dimensional to me, but I guess it's not fair comparing the character development in one book to three books of development!
A Conspiracy of Kings (Thief of Eddis)
Each of the books in this series is very different from each other, and this last was no exception.As Sophos' story, it was very different. I feel like this is really the only thing that the book could have been about, but I didn't quite like it as much as the others, for some reason. I'm not quite sure why, because I did like Sophos, and I was engrossed in his story, and delighted by the interactions between him and Eddis. However, when everything was revealed in the end, I felt a bit confused, like I might benefit from a re-reading.
The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, Book 3)
A lot happened in this book. In some places I wished I was reading the Kindle edition, because so many things happened that it would have been very helpful to be able to search for a name in the later half when an event or person from earlier was referenced and I didn't remember the details any longer. Only when I finished did I realize that this book uses third person in the way I find most interesting: to reveal, through the eyes of another person (or people) another character far more fully than would be possible when shackled in first person, with all inherent the blinds points of that viewpoint. (Certainly we saw in the Thief just how unreliable an unreliable narrator can be.) Because this book is definitely about Eugenides, and I thought that in some ways it was more successful than the Queen of Attolia in that the reader experienced Costis' gradual acceptance of who Eugenides is, in earning that characterization in a way that made perfect sense with everything we know about him from the first two books. My one issue is that I felt like that total acceptance of the Guard and Teleus came possibly too easily in the end, although I suppose if we accept that the Guard's dislike of him was based mainly on their disbelief a his prowess with a sword, it makes sense.
