A Tale of Two Cities Readalong: The Last Bit

This is it! I have officially done it and actually finished a Dickens novel for the first time (excluding A Christmas Carol last year) since university! I have to say that despite not posting last week, due to general crafty craziness and order overload, picture to be found at the bottom of this post for those who are interested, I'm really proud of myself! Aaaaand book 3 was so much the best of the three that it was just amazing. I didn't cry at the end, but I wasn't that far off, I will admit. Sydney Carton it an epic epic man. 

Also yay for Miss Pross, because Madame Defarge may have been a really cool character, but she was also kind of a lunatic...I think my favourite thing about this book was that everything played out exactly how I thought it would be at the same time not at all how I'd expected it to. In the beginning I expected Darnay to turn out the hero, and while certain aspects of him were quite heroic, he is clearly not as awesome as certain other people! There are going to be spoilers now, if you haven't read the book yet look away!

So, usually when people die because they love someone that much or whatever I sigh and roll my eyes and mutter something like 'Beauty and the Beast rip off' or 'Pokemon tears will bring you back to life'. Because I'm cool and all my movie references are really current, obviously. But this was just epic and brilliant and I loved it. I loved that Carton loved Lucie for years without ever mentioning it to anybody else, without anybody else ever suspecting and without being totally pathetic about it. I loved that he just accepted his own shortcomings, but then that he totally redefined his character in the last few chapters of the book, and that all of his basic character flaws which had been laid down in the first two books were reconstructed to enable him to perform his final heroic act at the end. Basically, I just loved it. 

That said Lucie herself didn't get much better over the course of the book. She still didn't seem to have much of a point except to be the perfect woman that everybody aspired to being with or whatever, but it stopped bothering me so much as we found out more about the Doctor's story and as events unfolded throughout book 3. I really enjoyed the backstory of the Doctor, and it gave a nice little twist just when everything was getting a bit predictable, plus it gave Madame Defarge a reason for her mentalness. 

So yes, A Tale of Two Cities in summary: quite slow moving with a few kind of pointless and slightly stupid characters (I'm an ex-aristocratic Frenchman who ran away and abandoned my estate but I know! I'll go back to France just when the Revolution is kicking off, nothing bad will happen!) but several fairly epic character and one who may have the greatest storyline and character development ever. I will keep you posted. How's your readalong gone? Do you all still hate it?

A Tale of Two Cities Readalong - Part 2!

Right, I've not written my actual post about this yet, but here's a linky so you can link up your thoughts about this week's bit!

A Tale of Two Cities: The First Bit

Right, so some of you guys will know that I am no longer the greatest at writing reviews, and so the greatest thing about a readalong is that at no point do I have to write a review as such. These are just thoughts and questions. I did a little background reading for this post (by which I mean I looked up 'A Tale of Two Cities' on Wikipedia. Obviously) and discovered the following:

• A Tale of Two Cities is Dickens' thirteenth novel (if you count all the Christmas stories as one thing, which they aren't really but I am for the purpose of this) published in 1859, but set before and during the French Revolution. This kind of messed with my mind, because it's Dickens writing what pretty much amounts to historical fiction. That was weird for me, because of him having been dead for ages and all. Does that make any sense?
• It was first published, like pretty much all of Dickens' work, as a weekly serial between 30th April 1859 and 26th November 1859. 
• It may have been influenced by Dickens just having begun his affair with eighteen year old actress Ellen Ternan. Apparently Lucie Manette looks like her...

So there's that... Judging from Twitter this week (and if you want to follow/join in with the debate use #dickensindecember) I am the only one who enjoyed Book 1 of this novel. I think it was starting off reading that famous opening, which has to be one of the most famous in literature surely? I think for me it just moved a lot quicker than the other Dickens novels I've read, and although there was a lot of description, I really enjoyed it. The second chapter of book one which is all about people travelling to Dover in a coach by night I found really atmospheric and quite gripping and  by the time we reached the end of book one I was quiet excited about the story. I liked how much had happened in the first six chapters. It was unexpected, to say the least. 

Having said that, the only character I really liked in book one was Madame Defarge. My knowledge of A Tale of Two Cities is pretty much limited to a general idea that it's about the French Revolution and also some character names are familiar, but for some reason I kind of feel like she might be the bad guy/the one who gets everyone killed? But anyway, I love how she just sits there and knits and says nothing and yet is clearly in charge of everything. It's awesome. The rest of them were a little bit meh to be honest. I liked the storyline and the description more than I did the characters, and that hasn't changed all that much in Book Two except that now there are some characters that I can't make up my mind about - mostly Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, which is funny as they are clearly meant to be opposite sides of the same thing. I think we're probably meant to like Darnay and dislike Carton but I'm just not sure yet. I've avoided reading the character descriptions and synopsis on Wikipedia because it will ruin the fun of reading this back in two weeks and going 'oh my God how could I have got it so wrong?!'. 

I think my major problem is that I really dislike characters who are trying too hard to be good, and I kind of feel like Charles Darnay might be doing that a little, and Lucie Manette is definitely trying too hard and she is probably going to drive me totally mad in a few more chapters but we'll get to that I'm sure. Actually I feel like most of the characters are trying too hard. I'm hoping they're going to change my mind in the next bit! 

I have to apologise for choosing possibly the worst point ever to make you all stop reading for the week! Hopefully nobody finished on Tuesday or anything and has had to wait since then, if you have then I'm sorry, but I've got to say I'm kind of glad the Marquis is dead, because that guy was clearly a knob. 

And thus end my thoughts for this week :-) Eloquent, aren't I?

Link up your posts here, or put your thoughts in the comments! Thoughts are welcomed from those who have not read along with us but who have thoughts to share!

A Tale of Two Cities Readalong: Kick off!

Today is the day that the A Tale of Two Cities readalong officially starts. I'm actually quite excited - I read a couple of chapters last night just to get a jump on it and it's not bad so far, although there was quite a long description of the mist... But very atmospheric! Also I was reading the Prologue in my edition and it talks about how Dickens got the idea for the novel while he was helping with a family production of a Wilkie Collins play. I know it wasn't The Moonstone, but I think that's quite a nice tie in for those of you who have been doing The Moonstone readalong in November!

Also just as a kind of side note, my sponsored reading also starts today, for which I am asking you lovely lot if you would like to sponsor me some amount (be it xpennies per page or a lump sum) for the reading I am doing in December. The moneys raised are going to Great Ormond Street Hospital, and if you'd like to sponsor me per page I've read I'll be keeping a running tally in the sidebar of the blog and posting a weekly update in my weekly update posts. If you'd like to sponsor me any random amount as a lump sum, my sponsorship page is here. Seriously, any amount no matter how small will be hugely appreciated!

So yeah, #dickensindecember has officially begun! If you'd like to sign up to join us, you can still do so here and if you need a reminder of the schedule, it's here. Enjoy, my friends! See you next Sunday for the first discussion!

Norwegian Wood Readalong - Final Post

I finished Norwegian Wood a while ago, and I didn't post last week because to be honest I forgot and also I'd finished the book quite a while previously and couldn't remember most of the things I wanted to say about it. It's pretty similar with this post... I'm glad that I finally read the book, but oh my goodness it was depressing!! What was up with everybody killing themselves? It seemed like every time I started to like a character, they killed themselves. I know I'm exaggerating, but honestly by the end I just it all to be over. I was kind of sick of everybody and their self -examination. I'm not sure whether or not I still want to see the film. I'm thinking I probably will at some point, but meh, I don't know. I think I might have to give myself some time to stop not caring about any of the characters first...

Sorry about the extreme brevity of this post. I wanted to write it so that I felt like I was done with Norwegian Wood, but I really didn't have much else to say but 'meh'. I think I will probably read more Murakami in the future as there were lots of things I liked while reading the book, just by the end I was sooooooo tired!

Norwegian Wood Post 2 
Norwegian Wood Post 1

Norwegian Wood Readalong Post Two....

I had a bit of a panic on Monday night because I suddenly remembered the next day was Tuesday and Norwegian Wood had been languishing in the corner to which I banished it last week when I made myself stop reading and as far as I remembered I hadn't read past the end of chapter five.. After I'd been panic reading for about ten minutes, it transpired that I was well into chapter 7, at which point I thought it was probably better to just keep going...

Because of that I've finished the book, so I'm going to keep it short this week, and still talk about the allotted chapters next week and the following so as not to ruin it for any of you who haven't yet finished it.

Chapters 5 and 6 were reeeeeally Naoko-ish (yes, this is a word). I missed Midori. I liked that we found out where the hell Naoko had gone off to, and in a way I kind of liked the insular nature of Toru's visit to the sanitorium, but the entire two chapters were basically more about Naoko and Naoko's problems. I still like Murakami's style I think. It's difficult to tell because the things I think I like about it - that it's really simple and kind of mundane in its' description - are the same things that can make me really hate a writer. I think the thing that keeps me reading Norwegian Wood is the same thing that kept me going when I read Kafka on the Shore, which is the quirkiness. He goes on and on talking about bus routes and what Toru ate and drank and what time in the morning it was, and then suddenly he throws in a character like Midori or Reiko, seemingly just for flavour. Also I really like a lot of the descriptions:

"Her face had lots of wrinkles. They were the first thing to catch your eye but they didn't make her look old. Instead, they emphasized a certain youthfulness in her that transcended age. The wrinkles belonged where they were, as if they had been part of her face since birth" p123

I kind of like how visual the book is in general, but especially these chapters in the sanitorium - I really did get the feeling that it was a place outside of reality. Like it had its own time zone and life was kind of suspended while you were there. 

I find Toru and Naoko's relationship increasingly weird though. It kind of seems like the only reason they are really together at all is because Toru feels responsible for Naoko because she was his best friend's girlfriend, and his best friend killed himself, which is clearly not a great thing to base a relationship on. Also it would be good if Norwegian Wood could get out of its' own head a little. It makes my head spin a little bit - they always seem to be talking about really deep stuff, which is fine, but to me it's kind of no wonder they're all a bit messed up if they sit around analysing everything all day. 

These two chapters weren't the greatest for me, I have to admit. I feel like the story is a little lifeless without Midori! 

Norwegian Wood Readalong Post One

I was excited about starting Norwegian Wood for Reading Rambo's Readalong. Murakami's style is kind of similar to Kazuo Ishiguro's, and he's one of my favourite authors. People warned me that I wouldn't be able to only read four chapters for this week's section, and they were half right. I did manage to only read the first four chapters, but I literally had to force myself to shut the book, put it down and in a different room...

I am a big fan of Kazuo Ishiguro, and stylistically at least, Norwegian Wood is quite similar. It's incredibly immersive. So far, the basic story is thus:

As the novel opens, 37 year old Toru Watanabe is on board a plane about to land in Germany when he hears Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. It takes him back to his college days, and the strange relationship he had with Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend. In their hometown, Toru and Naoko are both victims of a tragedy which affects both their relationship, and the rest of their lives. A little later while at University in Tokyo, they accidentally meet again and rekindle their uneasy friendship. It's unclear what are the boundaries of the relationship between them, and just when Toru begins to try to find out, Naoko vanishes. Following her disappearance, Toru meets Midori, a girl without much of a family who plays the guitar terribly.. By the point at which I forced myself to stop, Toru and Midori have had a date during which they watched a house burn while Midori played the guitar, and he hasn't seen her since. He has, however, managed to have a very early morning encounter with two strange girls, and has just got home from spending the night with one of them, to find a letter from Naoko...

I really, really, really wanted to know what was in the letter. It was actually physically difficult to stop myself from turning the next page. Norwegian Wood didn't immediately grab me - I struggled with the first couple of pages, but once the story got going, it really got going! It is told solely from Toru's perspective, and despite his confusion and inconsistency, I like him. He feels like a very honest narrator to me, and I know this will probably come back to bite me and he'll turn out to be like a fifty year old, serial killing woman or something (if he does, this book is totally not what I think it is...), but I like that he doesn't try to hide the fact that he goes from Naoko to Midori to finding random girls to sleep with, and his confusion about all of his various situations are always made very clear. I would love to be able to read Norwegian Wood in the original Japanese, rather than in translation, but as I'm notoriously crap at learning languages, I don't see that happening any time soon. However, even in translation the language is very clear and precise. As a reader I'm not particularly a fan of having to decipher loads of cryptic prose - although I have been known to do it I really do have to be in the mood for it, I'm very much a fan of clarity, and Norwegian Wood has it by the bucketload so far.

However, it also has just the right level of mystery in the plot to keep me totally engrossed. I want to know what's going on with Naoko, where Midori keeps disappearing to, not to mention whether or not Toru will actually ever sort himself out or not...Basically, I love the book, and I know that I'm going to find it difficult to impossible to stop reading again after next weeks' segment.

I'll have to wait until I finish to be sure, but I'm fairly sure I've found a new author...

Norwegian Wood Readalong - Intro Post

During the month of January, Reading Rambo is hosting a readalong of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. It's been on all of my lists for everything for ages, so I thought I'd join in..

I must admit to being more of a Haruki Murakami fan in theory than actually in practice. I have very grand intentions regarding his work, but so far all I've managed to get through is Kafka on the Shore, which I loved, but which was weeeeird... From talking to people I know that weird is probably what I should be expecting going into Norwegian Wood (which I have had on my shelf for well over a year now), and I have no problem with that. Weird is good. Weird is challenging. Weird is, generally, awesome. Also, I love the whole white and black theme of his covers - so basic, so distinctive. They are the kind of books I want to collect primarily because they would look awesome. Yes, I know that's shallow, but sometimes I do like to judge books by their covers..

Because I like to know a bit about the author I am reading, I did some 'research' (and by research I mean I googled him...). Here is what I found out: (from www.murakami.ch):

• Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 in Kyoto, Japan

• In 1974 he opened the Jazz Bar in Tokyo
• In 1979 his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing was published
• In 1981 he started to write for a living
• In 1991 he became an Associate Researcher at Princeton University
• According to Wikipedia, which seems to be weirdly more accurate on this than his own website, he has published twelve novels, plus short stories and essays. 1Q84 is also on my January reading list. I feel I may be overwhelming myself, but ah well. 

So that's basically it. A lot of people were talking about the film of Norwegian Wood last year. Apparently it is brilliant, and I think that I will have to attempt to see it this month as part of the readalong greatness. Here is a synopsis of the book from Goodreads:

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before.  Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable.  As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love .

I'm excited about the book! Hopefully I will finish my current read, Yossarian Slept Here by Erica Heller today and be able to start...

Norwegian Wood readalong!

I have so far only read ONE Haruki Murakami novel, Kafka on the Shore, which totally blew my mind. There are so many of his novels that I want to read Everywhere I go lately I'm hearing about 1Q84, and I have had Norwegian Wood on my shelf for the whole of 2011 pretty much, besides being desperate to see the film, and when I stumbled on the January readalong hosted by Reading Rambo I had to sign up!

So that's basically it. In January, I will be kicking my 2012 reading year off to what I hope will be an awesome start by finally reading this book,  come join me! :-)

A Bit of this and a Bit of That.. & why it occassionally sucks to be broke...

So, this is what I'm supposed to be posting about - William Thackeray's Vanity Fair, which I am reading for Allie's readalong. Unfortunately, due to I'm not quite sure what, possibly busyness, possibly just being in a weird, unsettled mood reading-wise, I've only got to chapter 3 of the 30+ I'm meant to have read by this point! I have read it before, and so far it is as easy to read and engrossing as I remembered, and Becky Sharpe is just as evil as I remember her being, although if I remember right, she gets quite a bit worse before the end! It's a mystery to me why some classics are so easy to read, and some are such a struggle. I guess it's the same as with any book, really - it all depends on what you like, and whether the storyline interests you. My first reading of Vanity Fair was when I was fourteen. I borrowed it from my mum, an avid reader of historical mysteries (Agatha Christie, Elizabeth & Ellis Peters, Susanna Gregory, Alexander McCall Smith are all loves I've inherited from her), because it looked to weird on the top of a pile of the aforementioned authors! I'm reliably informed that as a younger woman, my mum was quite the reader of Classics, and she does have quite a nice collection of Dickens, and I think that she'd been given Vanity Fair, as something she'd never read. Anyway, whatever the reason, it was there, and I grabbed it, and absolutely devoured it. It's weird that its so long, but at no point do I remember being bored by it. It'll be interesting to see if that's the case the second time around.

So far, that's pretty much all I've got to say about Vanity Fair. I'm hoping that the rest of the book proves as enjoyable as I remember!

In other news, my home internet is for some reason being totally crap lately. We have a really cheapy wireless pay monthly connection, which basically only works if you live close enough to a hotspot. Ours is really on and off, as the hotspot is quite close, but its' also down the bottom of a hill (we're at the top), on top of a cliff, overlooking the sea... It's usually temperamental whenever it's windy, rainy, snowing, hot, or too loud (we're a tourist destination, it's summer)... But in the last couple of days it seems to have given up completely. We're working on it, but until then, I'm not sure how regular my posts will be, which I hate! If I don't have home internet, I will literally only be able to post once a week, at the library on my day off :-(

Anyway! Moving on to more exciting things, before I become totally depressed! As I don't participate in In My Mailbox, but have got a few exciting things this week, I just thought I'd share my haul!

Johnny and the Dead & Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett (from Amazon) - I've recently managed to get my fiance (who used to read, in his vague distant childhood) back into reading again, via Terry Pratchett's children's books. Must also take this opportunity to give thanks to Neil Gaiman, as Odd and the Frost Giants was what got him excited in the first place, as I haven't read it, and he now has. He tells everybody...

I requested Apology for the Woman Writing by Jenny Diski from Virago UK, because I read her novel Stranger on a Train, and really enjoyed her slightly sarcastic style. I have to say, Virago were already favourites of mine for publishing many of my favourite authors (off the top of my head, Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood come to mind), but when they sent me this, they also sent me a copy of Emma Donoghue's Touchy Subjects, because they thought I might enjoy it, and now they've rocketed to number one position!




And finally, following my recent Reading Lolita in Tehran obsession, I've been looking to get hold of more books about books and the reading process, and managed to pick up The History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, for the price of postage on Readitswapit! Very excited to start reading this!

Finally, earlier in the week, Hanna of Booking in Heels (who, by the way, is currently one of my absolute favourite bloggy people - go read her reviews, they're really succinct and very well written and often have a heavy dose of sarcasm, which is a good thing!) were talking about how there are no UK book bloggers, and how we should create a UK Book Blogger Army, and then Lyndsey from Amused, Bemused and Confused told me about the UK Book Blogger Directory. If you're in the UK, go sign up! It's a really easy way for us all to find each other, and hopefully we can use it to do more stuff that doesn't have the dreaded 'US only' requirement! Also, stand by for a UK Book Blogger Army - Your Country Needs You! button, it may be forthcoming!

That's all I've got for now, sorry about the rambling nature of the post, and all the links. I had a lot to get out of my system, in case I NEVER GET TO BLOG AGAIN!! (I hate my internet)

Hope you're all having great weeks so far! If anything exciting happens, I'll be on Twitter :-)

Affinity Readalong Post 2

So, I'm late for the last post of the readalong, but I have an excuse! I had the most disgusting virus alllllll last week, and just felt like I didn't even want to move, let alone read. Also, I went home to my mums over the past weekend for bridal shopping, plus my sisters were in a show, plus I invited my future in-laws and my fiance's neice to stay at mums for the weekend = totally mental! Aaaanyway!

I finally finished Affinity last night, and the opinion voiced in my parts 1&2 post was completely upheld. I loved this book! It was gripping, passionate, dark, intense...all the things it set itself up to be. I really enjoyed the character development in parts 3&4, and for me, the twist in the development of Margaret Prior's character especially, really made the whole thing believable. Although I didn't feel that everything was completely tied up and fully explained by the end of the novel, I did think the way that Waters tied the strands of the story together was very clever and seamless. The whole way through, she kept me guessing at what was real and what was illusion, and I loved that! I've already got several of my friends, who I think will love the book, lined up to pass it along to!

Sorry about the shortness of this post, and the totally sporadic and basically rubbish amount of posting I've been doing recently. What can I say? Life keeps taking over! And I'm still in my whole only being able to access the net at the library thing, which just makes it that much more difficult. I planned to post loads last weekend at mums, but every time I sat down, someone would ask my opinion on something, and then by the evening, when I was looking forward to being alone with an actual computer for a few hours, I was so exhausted I was just falling into bed... I'm planning that this week will be better, starting off with the Autism Awareness Giveaway Hop on Monday. Check it out for a chance for a FREE BOOK! I'm excited!

Oh, and speaking of free books, I have to say thanks to Rebecca at The Book Ladys Blog, for the copy of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, by Michelle Young-Stone. I got a lovely little note from the author with it, and can't wait to start reading, as it looks amazing!

Affinity Readalong: Post 1

I'm reading this book as part of Andi's Affinity Readalong
Because I signed up for the Classics Circuit Lost Generation Tour, and got all absorbed in Tender is the Night, I didn't think I'd finish the first two parts of Affinity in time - I still hadn't started it by Friday night, and had to work all day Saturday! But it says a lot for the characters and atmosphere Sarah Waters has created, that I've not only hit the deadline, but can't wait to find out more!

I've had this book on my shelf for around 3 years. I read The Night Watch, fell in love with it, bought this, and never read it, until now. So far, I'm in love with it! It took a little while to get into it, because at the beginning, it's very jumpy, and it isn't always easy to tell who is talking. Also, the beginning is full of references and allusions to events, without really explaining anything, but after Margaret Prior started to visit Selina Dawes, it really started to become engrossing.

I love the prison setting, and it's really interesting to find out the kinds of things people would be sent to prison for in this period (4 years for procuring an abortion...?!). Also, it reminds me (in tone, and content) a lot of many of Sarah Rayne's books, which I adore. At the moment, I'm most interested to find out how much of the spiritualism side of things, is actually just tricks, and the details of what happened to get Selina put in jail. I'm also keen to know Margaret's story in full, rather than as hints and mystery. At the moment, I'm concentrating so much more on the story, so I'll be able to comment much more fully on the style, and dissect the book more, when I finish, which will probably be in about a day! This book is awesome!!

The Three Musketeers Readalong : Part 1

I've wanted to read this book for a long time, so when I found out about the readalong, I had to join in! As a child, I remember watching loads of adaptations of The Three Musketeers. In the first 29 chapters, though, everything I remember happening in the animated children's series, has already happened, so I'm really interested to see what happens next!

When I started reading, I really didn't think I was going to like the characters at all. D'Artagnan in particular, came across as a bit of a self-important, oversensitive child, and all of them really, seemed overly ready to draw their swords for the smallest percieved insult. Within about ten minutes of being in Paris, D'Artagnan managed to offend, and thus end up engaged to duel, each of the Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. When they are attacked by the Cardinal's guards, D'Artagnan steps up to help the musketeers, after which they take him on as their protege, and somewhere along the line, I started to like him. His self-importance became determination, oversensitivity, romanticism, and the desire to duel with everyone has turned into a really quite touching bravery, and desire to defend and protect his friends. I do feel that so far, a lot of the time, D'Artagnan comes across as a boy, pretending to be a man.

I've only been reading this two chapters a day, and to be honest, I think that's probably what's keeping it fresh for me. There have been days when I've wanted to read lots more than two, and equally days where the two have seemed like an impossible chore, although there have definitely been less of these! The only other Dumas book I've read is The Count of Monte Cristo, which is an absolutely huge, beast of a book. I really enjoyed it, but I (and my sister) both did manage to skip a fair few chapters in the middle where not much was happening, and pcik it up again at the end, not having missed much. So far with The Three Musketeers, I'm wanting to stick with it all the way through, for the most part.

Like a lot of people, though, I'm finding it hard to get to grips with the terrible lack of morals the musketeers have. It's equally hard to balance this lack of morals, with the kind of religious scenes which run through the book. The chapter about Aramis' thesis was the one I found hardest to get through, so far.  I do feel, though, that the novel is much more about the characters than the setting, and, for me, the two haven't really connected yet. It may sound like a silly thing to say about a novel that's so specifically French, but to me, the setting just hasn't really come alive. Thankfully, the adventure side of the story totally makes up for any of the things which are lacking.

I'm really looking forward to finding out what happens in the last half of the book!

February Round-up

In about a week, I'll have done a month of my year long book buying ban, and this is honestly the longest I've ever been without buying books - it's starting to take its' toll. I was actually walking around Waterstones yesterday holding a pile of books, and kept going to grab my fiance and show him all the books I'm going to buy in eleven months and a week. He had to physically prise the books out of my hands and drag me out of there. It's quite pathetic really...

I have to say that I've allowed myself a loophole in this whole thing, which is I'm allowed to swap one book per month. So this month I have acquired:

- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
- Apple Bough by Noel Streatfeild (swapped in Jan but didn't arrive till early Feb)
And I've read: 3 books I borrowed from my family, eleven books I borrowed from the library, one book I won from Goodreads, one from Readitswapit, and 3 from my TBR pile. Total = 18 books. Not bad, for the shortest month of the year!

I've started reading The Three Musketeers for the readalong I'm participating in. It's quite engrossing, but I'm not getting too far with it, as I've also started The Age of Innocence, which I'm loving, and have Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, and an Esther Freud (who I totally love!) book, The Wild, that I haven't read yet staring at me! I also have to start Affinity  at some point, for that readalong, and went a bit nuts at the library, meaning I now have to read Binu and the Great Wall for my Canongate Myth Challenge, and Bill Bryson's Shakespeare, as well as listening to Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, read by the ever amazing Tony Robinson, with my fiance. And all before they are due back...
And thus, March begins!

I've also finally put up my Booklovers Project List!! Yay!

Why I LOVE Mondays!

Until I started blogging, I absolutely despised Monday morning, but now I cannot wait for it! This is because the library is closed on a Sunday, and in my current internet-less state, Monday morning means the return of my blogging ability. It feels like ages since my last post, and I was starting to have withdrawal symptoms. There are so many things I need to post about! I do find that if my ability to blog is hampered, then my reading pace slows down. I think it's a subconscious thing - I don't want to get too behind on my reviews, so I stop reading! Saturday when I came to the library, it was absolutely packed out, and I couldn't get onto a computer. Consequently, I watched a loooot of TV...
Anyway, here's what's been happening since my last post...

I've signed up for the Affinity Readalong over at Estella's Revenge. Also decided to participate in another challenge (as if I wasn't already doing enough!). The Booklovers Project, hosted by Amanda at the Zen Leaf is basically a big list of authors, and it's based around The Booklovers Song by The Divine Comedy, which I'd never heard of before I read about this challenge, but I listened to it, and it is awesome. Go. Listen!

In real life, I've been up since half past stupid this morning, finishing up the first bit of 'Operation Make Wedding Invitations', and making invite lists and suchlike. Here's a (terrible) picture of the preliminary stages:



Ok. So, this is the major reason I was so immensely frustrated about not being able to share my joy with the blogosphere on Saturday:

The Hunger Games Trilogy

by Suzanne Collins

I basically started reading these books (and this isn't the sort of thing I usually do) because everybody else was. I kept seeing reviews popping up everywhere I looked, so when I came across the first one in the library, I had to get it out.

From the very first, the trilogy blew me away. I loved the intensity of the story, and I particularly loved Katniss and Peeta, the main characters. Let me preface this by saying that anything involving children being hurt is usually the one thing I cannot deal with. It makes me go all weird and shaky and angry. These books didn't make me feel like that, though, although they probably should have, given the subject matter. Collins is extremely clever in the way that she can reduce children being forced to butcher each other merely to being a statement of fact, but then infuse such emotion into other deaths that it leaves you reeling. The great triumph of the books is that they manage, for the most part, to escape being predictable, and to retain the humanity of the characters.

The trilogy is set in Panem, a dictatorship where people have been divided into 12 districts, each specialising in production of a different raw material e.g. food, wood, coal etc. Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, with her mother and sister Prim. Since her father died, she has been the sole provider, by means of poaching, and selling her loot on the black market. The story really kicks off when her sister is picked for the annual Hunger Games, a barbaric reality TV show in which 'tributes' (a boy and girl from each district) are forced to go head to head in an arena full of horrible things. The last one alive, wins. Katniss volunteers to replace Prim in the arena, and the story goes from strength to strength from there on.

My favourite thing about the series was the depth of the characters. All of them were so beautifully human to me, and Katniss especially really developed as a character. It was like an extreme coming of age, in which the responsibility for keeping herself and others alive is part of her life way before falling in love and other such typical teenage girl things.

In every book, there was another character I fell in love with. In The Hunger Games, gorgeous little Rue absolutely broke my heart, in Catching Fire, Finnick really won me over, and in Mockingjay, it was Katniss' little sister, Prim. Throughout it all, though, it was really the strong, dependable character of Peeta who held everything together, including Katniss.

These books were immense. I read Catching Fire and Mockingjay back to back in the space of two days, and when I'd finished, I just sat there holding the book and grinning like a moron.

Read them. Read them now :)

Rating: ***** (million!)