tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36533563216857635402024-03-13T13:01:46.475+00:00Skies and FairytalesA bit here / there but mostly not here.
Currently on a grand quest to read more Finnish stuff!Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-86600418607783612022018-08-30T15:05:00.000+01:002018-08-30T15:05:02.571+01:00The Light We Lost - Jill Santopolo<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'We've known each other for almost half our lives. I've seen you smiling, confident, blissfully happy. I've seen you broken, wounded, lost. But I've never seen you like this. You taught me to look for beauty. In darkness, in destruction, you always found light. I don't know what beauty I'll find here, what light. But I'll try. I'll do it for you. Because I know you would do it for me.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>There was so much beauty in our life together.'</b></i></div>
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I picked this book up because it's been pretty popular since its release last year. After I started it, I could certainly tell why; it's very addictive, interesting and compelling. I found myself ranting to Daniel about the latest events just like it was a friend of mine making these decisions and not just a character in a book.<br />
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The main idea is that the main characters, Lucy and Gabe, meet on the day of 9/11 in New York and immediately fall in love. However, life pulls them in different directions, Gabe to Middle East and Lucy to make a TV show and finally, to Darren. He's a perfectly decent guy, and he makes Lucy happy. Just not quite as happy as Gabe, with whom she crosses paths every now and again...</div>
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This book is written as Lucy speaking/writing/thinking their life together to Gabe, which certainly gives it a different feeling from just a traditionally written love story. It felt like this book was a story that could only be told by her, and more specifically, I felt like I was part of the story too.<br />
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The setting of this book wasn't the most interesting thing to me, but 9/11 quickly takes a backseat and the story becomes about people seemingly not directly affected by it making decisions because of this big disaster that happened in the home.</div>
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Both Lucy and Gabe make lots of decisions in this story that I don't agree with. It annoyed me for a while, but it also made them feel more like real people with actual lives. Characters that are trustworthy and respectable role models are important, but so are characters who are not. We make mistakes and bad decisions.<br />
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I've got quite a lot of thoughts about the plot points and especially the ending of this book, but I'm not going to spoil it for you. As a whole it was quite a special and interesting take on this kind of a story, and I'd like to read more of Santopolo's works in the future,</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-28183304290605822422018-08-29T14:50:00.000+01:002018-08-29T14:50:13.023+01:00Josir Jalatvan eriskummallinen elämä - Siiri Enoranta<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'Ja joskus vielä ostaisin Miholle oman ilmalaivan ja tusinan täysiverisiä hevosia ja lakritsitehtaan ja kaikkien Aurosian hylättyjen rautatieasemien valtavat kellot.'</b></i></div>
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<i><b>'And one day yet I would buy Miho his own airship and a dozen purebreed horses and a liquorice factory and the huge clocks of all of Aurosia's abandoned railway stations.'</b></i></div>
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You can also find my reviews on <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/gisellen-kuolema-siiri-enoranta.html"><i>Gisellen kuolema</i></a> and <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/surunhauras-lasinterava-siiri-enoranta.html"><i>Surunhauras, lasinterävä</i></a> by the author on my blog!</div>
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As I may have mentioned previously, Siiri Enoranta is one of my favourite authors, and her <i>Nokkosvallankumous</i> is one of my favourite books. Therefore I'm obviously always on board when she releases a new book. Mum bought me this one in Helsinki at the end of my Christmas break, and I finally finished it [in March, whoops update speed]!</div>
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<i>Josir Jalatvan eriskummallinen elämä</i> ('<i>The Bizarre Life of Josir Jalatva</i>', if I were to translate it myself, although you could also replace 'bizarre' with 'queer' and you'd describe this book pretty well) sees Josir, the son of the owner of the famous Circus Maximissimi, fall in love with Micholei, who's a clocksmith in the making. Their life of parties, drugs and hedonism is soon interrupted by a vasar, a person with powers supposedly bestowed upon them by God, cursing Miho to switch bodies every now and again. Because the only way to undo such a curse is to get the same vasar to undo it, they put together a circus and travel the continent of Aurosia to fix things.<br />
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Along the journey people are picked up to join the circus, cities are visited, shows are had, and there's quite a few adventures of different kinds. The characters are the highlight of this story, but sometimes it felt like there were simply too many for all of them to stay relevant and separate in my mind.</div>
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I love the circus, honestly. I've gone just about every year for most of my life. So this book called out to me immediately when it was first announced. However, the circus and the travels kind of take a back seat in the story, and the main focus is on questions of self, gender and body. It was interesting, but I felt like often the same revelations were announced multiple times, dressed up slightly differently. I think I wanted a different book based on the same premise and would have liked this one more if it was dressed up differently.</div>
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On the other hand, Enoranta's writing style is incredible, and I love her run-on sentences and the storytelling that's borderlining stream of consciousness. There's also chapters from the point of view from many different characters, and they all have a very distinctive voice. It's a beautifully written story that explores many questions that the contemporary world wants answered every single day, but the plot of it left me hoping for a bit more.</div>
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PS. The raspberry pastry on the cover of this book looks so tasty and I want one now, although bad things happen because of it in the book and I'm not sure if it's worth the risk.<br />
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PPS. Enoranta's new book has just come out so stay tuned while I hunt down a copy somewhere!</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-57688629290669035492018-08-28T14:45:00.001+01:002018-08-28T15:33:05.731+01:00The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><i>'So I buy it. The most perfect little cardigan in the world. People will call me the Girl in the Gray Cardigan. I'll be able to live in it. Really, it's an investment.'</i></b></div>
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I've had this book on my shelf for a long time, and I read half of it once upon a time, but now I picked it up on BookBeat as an audiobook. Hooray!</div>
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<i>The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic </i>(hereafter just <i>Dreamworld</i>) is the first book in the very popular <i>Shopaholic</i> series by Sophie Kinsella. The main character, Rebecca Bloomwood or just Becky, is a shopaholic - she loves shopping all too much, and she can't even actually afford it. She works for Successful Saving magazine, even though she doesn't really understand any of the financy things she works with. The rest of the story is really just about her mishaps, fighting evil Visa bills and trying to Save Less or Earn More.<br />
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Becky is a great character. She's like that impossible friend who always screws things up but whom you love regardless. Her internal monologue is very funny, and she never becomes unlikeable even when she's doing the exact things she should not be doing. I want to shake her, but I still could never dislike her.<br />
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Naturally, for me Becky's work in a financial magazine was really exciting. Even though this book is the epitome of chick lit, you could really tell Kinsella has a background in working as a financial journalist herself. These things were never dumbed down for the reader, even when Becky herself couldn't fully grasp them. I fully believe chick lit doesn't need to be dumb and ditzy just because it's meant to be fun and feminine, and I'm glad this book did exactly that. There's also a plot with a love interest, but that was never the whole overarching plot of the story.<br />
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Overall this book was better than I would have thought and I'm really glad I gave it a read. It wasn't quite 5/5 but regardless worth a read (though I'll admit it is defnitely not for everyone). Props also for the reader of the Finnish audiobook, Elsa Saisio. She was absolutely excellent and I believe she was actually Becky Blomwood. One big gripe I did have with this book is that it was clearly written with a sequel in mind; no matter what Becky grows through in this book, in the end she isn't allowed much character growth; instead she just remains the same person she was when the book started so that the sequel could keep the silly ditzy shopaholic she was in this one.<br />
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Also, as a side note; there's really something comforting for me about reading British books in Finnish. It's a bit hard to explain, but it makes me feel like maybe I'm not the only person ever to be living between these two countries. It makes me feel at home.</div>
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PS. These reviews are of books I read earlier in spring - missing between this one and the previous is <i>The Upside of Unrequited </i>by Becky Albertalli, because I honestly have nothing to say about that book. It was okay. Not my favourite by a mile.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-24510523484274685882018-05-24T21:29:00.001+01:002018-05-24T21:29:55.012+01:00Kaikki anteeksi - Laura Manninen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Kaikki anteeksi</i> ('<i>Everything Forgiven</i>', free translation) is the debut work of Laura Manninen. It's based in part on her own experiences and is the story of Laura, who falls in love with a man called Mikko. At first he seems perfect but as their relationship develops, everything also starts to go wrong...</div>
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It's a book about domestic violence, and while it's by no means the first such work, it is a very important topic. This book is also excellent in the way you can see the evolution of the abusive relationship; at first it seems fine, but later on both Laura and the reader start to see the warning signs. It's a well-drafted story and a very touching book about survival in such a situation.</div>
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Both of the main characters were left feeling a little under-developed; the reader doesn't know that much about Mikko because Laura doesn't know much about him either, but Laura herself is also left a little flat, mostly defined through the abuse even though she claims to be a strong and independent person. The book also suffered in my mind because of the very beautiful language; it really 'worked' through most of the book but in some of the parts describing the abuse it felt odd and jarring and only worked to break the immersion. Mikko may be just about to hit Laura, and yet she starts musing about what it is for a woman to be a mother?</div>
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The plot was fairly predictable after having read some similar stories before, but books like this are more about the experience anyway. The ending however was a little bit too abrupt and left me wanting a little more, maybe about what happened after. I understand that may not have been the story the author wanted to tell, but I was a little disappointed anyway. </div>
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All in all, I gave this 4/5. It was a very strong debut novel about an important subject, and while the stylistic choices strange and the ending weak, it was still very good. I will be looking to any of Manninen's future works. </div>
<br />Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-91476220641441134032018-04-17T11:59:00.002+01:002018-04-17T11:59:36.447+01:00Rikinkeltainen taivas - Kjell Westö<div style="text-align: center;">
'What's happened in the book?' Daniel asked me many times while I was reading this.</div>
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'Nothing much,' I responded, every time.</div>
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I downloaded BookBeat on my phone mostly so that I could listen to more Finnish books (looking at you, Audible) and this was the first book I picked up, mostly because it's one of my mum's recent favourites and also rather popular otherwise.</div>
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<i>Rikinkeltainen taivas </i>('<i>Sulfur-Yellow Sky</i>', free translation) is Helsinki-based author Kjell Westö's seventh novel. Like his previous works, the original text is in Swedish ('<i>Den svavelgula himlen'</i>) but I read the Finnish translation. The book is set in Helsinki and spans from the 1960s to the present day. It's the story of the Narrator (he never gets a name, how cool is that? <i>Fight Club</i> feelings.) meeting the wealthy Alex and Stella Rabell and their lives both together and apart. And honestly, that's all that really happens in this book - the rest of it is just life.</div>
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It's a little weird, granted. There's no real drama arc or really anything else. However, Westö writes these characters so <i>real </i>and genuine, I found myself really enjoying the real life of someone who doesn't even exist. This is because you rarely get a real person you don't even know telling you about their life this honestly.</div>
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I didn't give this a full 5/5 because... well. I hear a lot of people say this wasn't Westö's best work and I feel like he can probably do a little better still, and I want to leave some space for that. Maybe he could do all this, but also have something happen in it?</div>
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I hope one day I'll be able to read Westö's works in Swedish (don't laugh at me for this, mum!). Sometimes in this book people specifically speak Swedish and sometimes Finnish, and that just doesn't really translate.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-67367671194891425042018-04-12T18:37:00.000+01:002018-04-12T18:37:35.710+01:00A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E Schwab<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>''Do you trust anything?' he countered, rubbing his wrist. 'Or anyone, for that matter?'</b></i></div>
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<i><b>The queen considered him, her pale lips curling at the edges. 'The bodies in my floor all trusted someone. Now I walk on them to tea.''</b></i></div>
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Hello again!</div>
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Daniel got me this book in London last December!! I wanted it because it looked and sounded exciting, and it definitely turned out to be that way too. And it's also set in London, sort of.</div>
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<i>A Darker Shade of Magic</i> is a pretty complex book, so bear with me. The main character, Kell, is one of the last Antari. The Antari have magic powers that allow them to travel between Londons: White, Red, Grey and Black. White London is a powerhungry country torn by civil war, while Red is Kell's homeland, where magic still thrives. Grey is 'our' London, without magic, and Black London has been destroyed by magic. When Kell makes a foul trade and meets pickpocket Delilah Bard in Grey London, they have to fix things and save all of the Londons from dark magic.</div>
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This book was a little heavy to get into because of all the lore and how the story spends a lot of time at the beginning establishing all of it. When I did get into it, it was a very innovative and unique take on this kind of a magic fantasy story. I don't know if the beginning could have been handled somehow a little better, since later on I regretted not paying enough attention to the little details that were thrown at me early on.</div>
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Lila Bard was a great character, and probably one of the most relatable female characters I've ever read of. She was both strong and weak and proud but also honest, and it was easy to imagine I would do the same things, if I were in her shoes. She's also the kind of female main I'd write in my story too.<br />
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Kell himself was also a well-written and quite balanced character. The 'one of the last magical beings' -thing could easily get a little overpowered, but he didn't feel that way to me. He doesn't flaunt his specialness around. A side mention also to Kell's brother Rhy's, the heir to the throne of the Red London - he was just such a precious character and I want good things to happen to him.<br />
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The thing I'll mark this down for is the heavy beginning, and also the fact that I didn't necessarily fall in love with this book as heavily as I could have. Also, there was a plot twist I think I foresaw that didn't happen yet - that's going to bother me until I read the sequel. I will read the sequel, though, so that's saying a lot!</div>
<br />Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-23811286152853948222018-03-14T13:47:00.001+00:002018-03-14T13:47:31.025+00:00Every Day - David Levithan<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.'</b></i></div>
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<i>Every Day</i> by David Levithan is the story of A, who has spent their whole life living in a different body, a different life every day. A has gotten very good at changing and not getting attached, until one day he's in the body of Justin and meets his girlfriend Rhiannon. Soon A starts wanting to be with Rhiannon, not just a day, but every day.</div>
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This book is one of those books that you can't think too much on or it all falls apart. Like, why does all of this happen? Why is the jump contained geographically and through A's age (they are 16, so will only jump to people who are the same age)? If you want to enjoy the book for what it is, you kind of just have to roll with what it is.<br />
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Through the jumps, Levithan takes the opportunity to tell many little stories with topics such as suicide, being transgender, illegal immigrants, religion and the like. Some of these were pretty cool while others were a bit half-hearted, more there for the sake of talking about it than actually needing to talk about it. In the end, only maybe one or two of them were actually relevant to anything else in A's life, which was a bit of a shame. To be a book with so many characters but only two of them mean anything, it's kind of poor.<br />
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Rhiannon is very likeable, and I could see what A would see to make them fall in love, but on the other hand A does fall head over heels for her very suddenly and a little bit for no reason, something Rhiannon calls them out on. That being said, their relationship hardly seemed functional to me. Rhiannon doesn't feel like she can be with someone when she can't be sure who and where the other person will be the next day. A wants Rhiannon to see behind the body and love A for who they are. But really? There isn't much 'A' to speak of, because they've never had a life of their own. And yes, that's cruel and unfair, but it was a little difficult for me to relate to A because of this. They felt a bit like they had given up, and Rhiannon becomes their whole life in a way that was a little annoying.<br />
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The writing of this book was rather good, and I felt like it described the different lives and people quite well. Even though I didn't necessarily relate to A, I still felt for their struggle to just exist. There's some honestly heartfelt moments throughout the story.<br />
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This book was maybe more like a 3.5 for me, but I rounded it up because I quite liked the ending. I was wondering how it was all going to tie together in the end and I thought it may have been going one way, but what happened was much better than what I had imagined. I will definitely check out Levithan's other works too.<br />
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Oh, and there's a sequel from Rhiannon's point of view, which I'll probably pick up sooner or later since she was pretty likeable and I could've lived with some more of her. There's also another sequel coming up, but I don't fully understand what it's about? Well, anyway. Hear from you soon!</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-36274262361095307932018-03-10T22:54:00.002+00:002018-03-10T22:54:35.931+00:00Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>'But I'm tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.'</i></b></div>
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Hello!!</div>
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<i>Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda</i> (I'll just call it '<i>Simon vs</i>.' after this, I think) has the titular Simon in an online relationship with 'Blue'. When Simon comes out as gay to the world without his own decision, he has to figure out what is that he wants to do next.<br />
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As far as the characters go, Blue was my favourite. Simon I liked also. But the others - the sisters, parents, friends... They all stayed quite distant to me throughout the journey, even though they seemed like nice people and their interactions with Simon definitely brought something to his character.</div>
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I don't think this book needs to be a gay story (even though it definitely is, a rather good one too), because it's definitely something feel most people can relate to. Referring to the quote I picked to start this review with, Simon is bothered by how he feels like he's constantly changing, and such is the case especially when you're growing up and constantly growing out of yourself from yesterday. Hence I'd like to contest almost everyone has at some point struggled with the hassle of 'coming out', which is one of the stronger aspects of this book.</div>
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Unfortunately, <i>Simon vs.</i> is another one of those very American young adult books that are starting to wear me out. It's probably very relatable to people who live there and do things Simon does every day, but to me it felt alien and kind of killed some of the immersiveness. Is that a problem that has to do with me, or the book? This time, I'm going to say it's the book.</div>
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Here's the reason: I feel like in another culture, this bombardment of information would possibly be done in a more thoughtful way. For an example, when I read '<i>The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane</i>', there wasn't much pre-existing knowledge of Chinese culture required of me. But <i>Simon vs. </i>is constantly speaking about Poptarts and bleachers and Reese's - things I know in passing from all the times I'm assumed to know them in American pop culture, but also things I'm never fully explained. I never gain a confidence that I fully understand what they mean. Maybe it means that the book assumes it's written primarily for an American - a fair assumption, to be fair - but it's just a bit of a shame.</div>
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On the bright side, <i>Simon vs.</i> is set in Atlanta, Georgia, just like <i>Gone With the Wind</i>. It's mainly so exciting because I would never have recognised is as the same place if it wasn't named. as such It's weird what can happen in 130 years or so.<br />
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I will definitely read Albertalli's books in the future as well (this autumn, there will be a collaboration effort between her and <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Adam%20Silvera">Adam Silvera</a>, which sounds so exciting!). Even though this one wasn't my favourite, I still found it quite enjoyable.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-58140755421148785252018-03-02T20:49:00.000+00:002018-03-02T20:49:01.819+00:00Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>'I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got one-half of the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it.'</i></b></div>
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Hello!</div>
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Now that all my 2017 books are reviewed, here's the first book I read in 2018, from my Christmas break spent in Finland. I think I can safely say it's also the best book I will read this year. What a<br />
terrible idea to get a jackpot on the first book!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y1Cwbod-f8M/WpMNff5czcI/AAAAAAAAA80/TdNmH9xKyGggUgt4kFCSR0gfU3jPWZq1QCLcBGAs/s1600/28500120_974863602679504_655717096_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y1Cwbod-f8M/WpMNff5czcI/AAAAAAAAA80/TdNmH9xKyGggUgt4kFCSR0gfU3jPWZq1QCLcBGAs/s320/28500120_974863602679504_655717096_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I had the absolute pleasure to read mum's beautiful copies <br />
from the 1970s!!</td></tr>
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Anyway, the spoiler is that I really liked this book. My mum's been telling me to read it for a while now and I can only speculate why I haven't read it before. Well, to be honest, I think I know why. </div>
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You see, <i>Gone With the Wind</i> clearly has a reputation of some sort. I've heard it being called one of the greatest love stories of all time and all that, and I think it's really downplaying the importance of this masterpiece. It is a love story, sure, and it is a great one. But it's also a story about war and misfortune and death and misery and unfairness and inequality and racism and patriarchy and a million of things that I find should be mentioned before it's just branded a romantic book for women. Heck, Margaret Mitchell herself stated that the primary theme of this book is 'survival'. That's not really anything we should outright label as a women's silly little pastime.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The books had these lovely pictures from<br />
the movie!!</td></tr>
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<b><i>'Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.'</i></b></div>
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Scarlett O'Hara is without a doubt one of the best-written characters I've met in any book. She's self-centered, spoiled and shallow in the beginning and she's still all of these things in the end, but the growth of her character is so well-written and believable. She's stubborn and she refuses to give up when her world turns to ash around her, unlike most of the other characters who just cling to the past. She's the most beautiful girl and she knows it, but she's also so sincere in just wanting to live her life having fun that she's hard to not like. She's also much more intelligent than she's allowed to be for a woman in her time, which I really enjoyed as well.<br />
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<b><i>'After all, tomorrow is another day.'</i></b><br />
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All of the other characters are so good as well. There's Scarlett's crush Ashley, attractive and artistic and incredibly unsuited for Scarlett and probably so attractive to her because of it. The Tara household also has a black caretaker called Mammy, who's incredibly difficult not to like. Scarlett's sister-in-law Melanie is basically the kindest person ever and everything else Scarlett doesn't even <br />
want to be but she still thinks the world of Scarlett, and Rhett Butler is a charming scoundrel who doesn't care to even try and gain the approval of the Southern nobles. He's also the only one not to fall for Scarlett's charm, and the two of these are the main romance of the book. I must say that it was impossible for me to not smile every time Rhett was around, because his character was so enjoyable to have around and such a great fit for Scarlett, insofar as anyone could be.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melanie on the left and Rhett and Ashley on the right</td></tr>
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Scarlett and Rhett's relationship is probably so memorable and iconic because it's not the standard love at first sight -kind. These two characters challenge each other and dance around each other constantly, and never quite settle into a comfortable relationship. In a way, even the aspect of this book that you should be able to take comfort in is a constant battle.<br />
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<b><i>'No, my dear, I'm not in love with you, no more than you are with me, and if I were, you would be the last person I'd ever tell. God help the man who ever really loves you. You'd break his heart, my darling, cruel, destructive little cat who is so careless and confident she doesn't even trouble to sheathe her claws.'</i></b><br />
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The historical setting of<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>this book is the American Civil War. What I knew about the war beforehand could be summed up in the following two points: 1) the South wanted to keep slaves and 2) the South lost. And while that's kind of the gist of it, this book made me understand how it was much more complicated and many-sided. Margaret Mitchell was from Atlanta, Georgia herself, and much of the historical aspects are based in her own experiences and the stories she heard. You could probably argue that the story takes sides, but to me it felt rather sincere about what it was trying to get across. This war is not part of my heritage, but I cared and weeped for the characters going through the hardships regardless, because it all felt so real.<br />
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So yes, 5/5, I loved it, I want to go back in time to not having read it but I also don't want to not have read it. Please read it and talk to me about it.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-21757547734659066642018-03-01T14:49:00.000+00:002018-03-01T14:49:06.963+00:002017 in Books<div style="text-align: center;">
Hello!</div>
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Happy 2018!! (I don't know when I'll get used to that, if ever)</div>
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So this post is a little bit overdue maybe, so I'll just get right to it. I read more books in 2017 than any year before it, so it's only fair I do some statistics / recap of them et cetera.</div>
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In total, I read 56 books. According to Goodreads, that's about 18,606 pages but I'll take that with a pinch of salt since I might have logged in some different editions and so on.</div>
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Out of those books,</div>
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17 were Finnish (30.3%)</div>
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20 were in Finnish (35.7%)</div>
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36 were in English (64.3%)</div>
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18 were British (32.1%)</div>
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32 were written by women (57.1%)</div>
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24 were written by men (42.9%).</div>
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11 were on the Kindle (19.6%)</div>
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10 were audiobooks (one was a podcast!) (17.8%)</div>
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35 were traditional books. (58.9%)</div>
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7 had main LGBT relationships (I excluded token gays from this because bleh) (12.5%)</div>
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4 were from outside North America, UK and Finland (7.1%) (This is something I'd really like to improve in 2018, I'm rather tired of all the US-centric literature especially)</div>
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I rated 15 books 5/5 (probably the easiest way to see them is <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/5%2F5">here</a>)</div>
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and only one book 1/5 (it was <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/charisma-jeanne-ryan.html">Charisma</a> by Jeanne Ryan).</div>
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I also participated in, and completed, the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge, which was 50 books in different categories such as 'animal on the cover', 'a book about faith or religion' and 'a book where nobody dies'. It was a lot of fun and had me picking up a lot of books I probably wouldn't have read otherwise, so it was a very good experience.</div>
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I also completed my Goodreads Reading Goal, which was set at 30 books. That was mostly due to the former reading challenge, of course. While both of these challenges were really fun and, well, challenging, they did make me pick up a lot of books that were short and probably ignore a lot of great ones. Because of this, I decided not to take on any reading challenges this year. It's kind of nice, for a change.</div>
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I also personally wanted to read more Finnish books, which was questionably successful(?) because living in the UK, it's kind of difficult to get my hands on as many of them as I'd like. Still, 17 isn't too shabby. I'll definitely continue with my challenge in the future too!</div>
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So that's that for 2017! Hopefully this year I'll have more specific stats for you, I'll try to make them as I go this time.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-57307548257604829672018-02-28T19:09:00.000+00:002018-02-28T19:09:15.025+00:00Suomen historia - Petri Tamminen<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>'Sotalapset</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Me oltiin siskon kanssa niin pieniä vielä, että suomen kieli unohtui meiltä Ruotsissa nopeasti. Kun palasimme sodan jälkeen kotiin Kajaaniin, äiti ei ymmärtänyt meitä eikä me äitiä. Istuttiin siskon kanssa kammarin pöydän alla ja itkettiin. Lopulta äiti keksi, että mennään apteekkiin. Apteekkari osasi ruotsia. Ne ensimmäiset kuukaudet käytiinkin sitten melkein joka päivä apteekissa. Hymyiltiin jo ovelta, kun nähtiin apteekkari, ja apteekkari hymyili, kun se näki meidät.'</i></b></div>
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<b><i>'War Childen</i></b></div>
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<b><i>We were still so young with my sister,that we forgot the Finnish language quickly in Sweden. When we came back home to Kajaani after the war, mum didn't understand us and we didn't understand mum. We sat with my sister under the chamber table and cried. Finally mum came up with us going to the pharmacy. The apothecary knew Swedish. Those first months we went to the pharmacy almost every day. We would smile already at the door, when we saw the apothecary, and the apothecary too smiled when they saw us.'</i></b></div>
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<i>Suomen historia</i> ('<i>History of Finland</i>') is a nonfiction book with little every day stories in a chronological order from Finnish people throughout the last 100 years. The timing is natural as it came out to commemorate our 100 years of independence. My brother actually got this book for my mum as a Christmas present, so naturally I picked it up to give it a read as well, and it became the last book I read in 2017. (I bet mum still hasn't read it now!)</div>
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The stories are quite short, one or two little pages each, like the one I picked to showcase you at the top. Some of them were really cute and heartfelt, some of them were a little less easy to understand. As a whole, on the other hand... Well, I don't really feel like there was a 'whole' to talk about here. The stories were cute and Finnish and about Finland, but there wasn't really a connecting thread going on.</div>
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Something nice about the book was also that it went through so many important Finnish events - the wars, <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/tuntematon-sotilas-vaino-linna.html"><i>The Unknown Soldiers</i></a>, the presidents, Nokia and all that. There's so many things in this book that I think any Finn can find something relate to.</div>
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That being said, if I had compiled this book, I would have definitely found more stories so that the least strong ones could have been left out. It could also maybe have benefitted from talking to younger people as well, because a lot of the stories felt to me like they were a bit... 'Kekkonen-era'. Regardless, it was a nice little book with some really lovely stories that made me really happy and proud. Happy hundred years and many more hundreds to go, Finland!</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-23280721761247604872018-02-27T18:43:00.000+00:002018-02-27T18:43:09.253+00:00History is All You Left Me - Adam Silvera<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'There's an alternate universe where we're a crew of three, so tight and unbreakable we don't need a fourth to even it out for me. Where a fourth would only be trouble. Jackson drives, you're sitting shotgun, I'm yelling at you both to turn up the volume when our anthem comes on, and we all sing so loudly the radio doesn't stand a chance against our slightly off-key, comfortable chorus. But that's not a universe any of us lives in, unfortunately.'</b></i></div>
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Hi again!</div>
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Here's another book by Adam Silvera, who wrote <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.com/2017/12/they-both-die-at-end-adam-silvera.html" style="font-style: italic;">They Both Die at the End</a>. I was so impressed with that one I picked this up for the Kindle pretty much right away (even after I said I'd wait). And I guess it's safe to say that I was much less impressed with <i>History is All You Left Me</i>. In this one, our OCD-ridden main character has to deal with the death of his ex-boyfriend, best friend and the one he thought he'd be with forever, Theo. He becomes friends with Theo's new boyfriend, Jackson, in an effort to collect all the remaining pieces of Theo's life. And there may even be something Griffin's not even admitting to himself...</div>
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I think the main plot of this book, as described above, is solid enough. The execution, however, was a little... sloppy? I found myself skimming through the latter two thirds of this book because I wasn't really invested in Griffin and Theo's relationship, which was mostly told in flashbacks. There's also not all that much happening in this book, plot-wise. I also didn't like most of the characters - the main three came across as somewhat horrible people and also kind of removed from everyone else.</div>
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The book is beautifully written, though. I picked up many nice quotes like the one I used at the top. The book also started out very thought-provoking. Towards the end the plot just got really weird, and I found it difficult to remain invested. </div>
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Regardless of how this wasn't really the book for me, I'll be reading Adam Silvera's other works too whenever I come across them.</div>
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Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-61538246526283806082018-02-26T15:51:00.000+00:002018-02-26T15:51:02.390+00:00The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane - Lisa See<div style="text-align: center;">
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Another one of my December 2017 reads was the audiobook <i>The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane</i> (I'll just call it <i>Tea Girl</i> in the future!) by Lisa See. The book is about an Akha minority girl called Li-Yan who has to abandon her baby, which is then adopted to America and raised in Pasadena. It's also about tea, heritage, beliefs, minorities and ancestry.</div>
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I'll be the first to admit I had never heard of the Akha people before. I guess it would be naïve to suggest that a country with the sheer size of China wouldn't have ethnic minorities living especially in the rural areas, and the Akha are but one of them. The book does an excellent job describing their ways of living, their beliefs and traditions, and I do feel like I know a lot more now. Li-Yan doesn't even speak the Han majority language (Chinese) at the beginning of the book. <i>Tea Girl</i> also taught me a lot more about, well, tea. Like, a lot. I had never before thought so much about the different qualities of tea, the processes and their value... That was one of the strongest aspects of the book for me. Unfortunately these two of my favourite things I could have just as easily gotten by reading a nonfiction book (insofar as those exist) about these topics. The more fictional aspects of this book I found lacking, to say the least.</div>
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Li-Yan was mostly likeable. She was okay. There's not that much to say about her, because she was mostly defined through other people; as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother. Her daughter Haley on the other hand was unbearable. She was given an awful American whiny voice in the audiobook, and she was an ungrateful brat. First she whines about not being able to be in touch with her Chinese heritage, then <i>her parents take her to China(!!!)</i> and she <i>whines about what horrible people they are for doing so(???)</i>. Rich people problems, I tell you.</div>
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And really, I'm aware Lisa See is American and she's famous for her portrayal of China/America, but I would have enjoyed this book at least 75% more if it wasn't so awfully American. I don't only mean how the story eventually migrates to the US, but also how even before that it feels a lot like rich white people trying to 'go down to the level of less intelligent ethnic minorities', if that makes sense. What I mean is, even the China portion felt somehow talked down to, and as if the characters weren't allowed to be all that smart just because they weren't Western. And of course, we have the white savior trope. </div>
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So, all in all I was divided about this book. Half of it I really enjoyed and half of it I really disliked. I cut it neatly in half and gave it 3/5 for that.</div>
<br />Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-12461658070093185782018-02-25T14:55:00.002+00:002018-02-25T14:55:31.958+00:00Juurihoito - Miika Nousiainen<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'Ilta jatkuu hilpeänä ja seurueemme pitää valtavaa älämölöä. Ympäröivistä pöydistä vilkuillaan paheksuvasti. Nautin tilanteesta. Vihdoinkin minulla on perhe jota hävetä. Kyllä ihminen läheisiltään rakkautta saa, mutta nämä hetket jolloin saa hävetä läheisiään, ovat korvaamattomia.'</b></i><br />
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<i><b>'The evening continues to be cheerful and our entourage is making a huge racket. From the surrounding tables they are glancing disapprovingly. I enjoy the situation. Finally I have a family to be ashamed of. Sure a person gets love from their relatives, but these moments when you get to be ashamed of them are irreplaceable.'</b></i><br />
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Heyo!<br />
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I realise I read this book in December... Where have I been? At home and at uni and reading books and just growing my backlog of reviews to do. Hopefully in the next (couple of) week(s) I'll have reviews up for my last four 2017 books and then I'll move on to the seven(!) I've already reviewed this year. Whoops!<br />
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My brother borrowed me this book to 'read for my blog' - thank you! I finished it on Independence Day, so it really has been a while. It joins <i><a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/metsajatti-miika-nousiainen.html">Metsäjätti</a></i> in the books I've reviewed on this blog by the author, but my favourite is still <i>Vadelmavenepakolainen</i>, to which I'll probably forever be comparing the author's other works.<br />
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<i>Juurihoito</i> ('<i>Root Canal Therapy</i>') is a story of two long-lost brothers who meet by chance and find out that their father is a serial family leaver. They set out to find out more about their father, and along the way, meet new siblings across the globe, each with a similar story. The first two siblings are Pekka and Esko, the first works in advertisement and the second a dentist. The first is happy and has a child and an ex-wife, the second is very serious and a little lonely, and the group only grows with every trip to the other side of the globe.<br />
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The siblings were definitely one of the better things in this book - they were all so similar, yet different, and their interactions were an absolute delight to follow. I think anyone who's ever had / witnessed siblings will relate to it in some way.<br />
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As mentioned previously, I think Miika Nousiainen is at his strongest when he's describing Finland and being Finnish. This book has that too, even though it's set largely abroad. It also talks about some more global issues but while these were really interesting, I felt the visits were too brief to really get into it. Maybe if it was a little more selective (or longer), the book would have been able to really focus on them better.<br />
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I think I'd have to put this one under Metsäjätti on the scale of the author's works, not because it was necessarily worse in any way, but because it just didn't give me that many feelings during its course. I kind of think of it fondly now, but I still don't remember much of what happened. It's a solid 3/5 but I probably wouldn't really read it again.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-22303853730821897112017-12-18T22:23:00.001+00:002017-12-18T22:49:03.162+00:00Artemis - Andy Weir<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'I live in Conrad Down 15, a grungy area fifteen floors underground in Conrad Bubble. If my neighbourhood were wine, connoisseurs would describe it as "shitty, with undertones of failure and poor life decisions."'</b></i><br />
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Hi!<br />
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I was absolutely <i>over the Moon</i> about this book even before it came out. Seriously, ever since I read <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-martian-andy-weir.html"><i>The Martian</i></a> by Andy Weir two years ago, I've been pretty much waiting for this one. I've been on an <i>orbit</i> around it, seriously. Almost like a <i>lunatic</i>.<br />
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I must admit, this and <i>The Martian</i> are almost like from different <i>planets</i>. <i>The Martian</i> was a very contained solitary adventure with a solid plot, filled with fun and jokes and written mostly like a diary. <i>Artemis</i>, on the other hand, was not solitary - Jazz has many interesting companions - and in some ways much more serious. It deals with a lot of topics I wouldn't have thought it would venture to. It was, still, a fun adventure.<br />
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The writing of this book wasn't necessarily like a <i>sea of tranquility</i>, but it was entertaining. One of my favourite things about The Martian was how I felt like I was learning new things, and this book certainly had that aspect in it too. It is, however, less science-driven and more character-driven.<br />
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Jazz is a career criminal who's grown up in Artemis, the first city on the moon. She's working hard to repay an old debt, so when she gets the chance to earn one million slugs (that's the currency) she jumps at it - turning the book into a heist storJazz is quite a complex character, and in my mind she gets points for (being female, obviously), being Saudi Arabian (representation!!), her sense of humour and her intelligence. That's not to say she wasn't sometimes annoying, but... protagonists. As I mentioned before, the rest of the cast was really cool and interesting too, and quite diverse. Jazz even has an Earth penpal living in Kenya, and their conversations provide the reader with more information on Jazz's background.<br />
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The actual plot of this book starts kind of late, and I felt that the beginning dragged a little too. Because of this, it took me almost a month to read. I bought it on day one, too! And just as unfortunately, the ending happened all too suddenly, and the whole main conflict was resolved and padded down in about 30 pages. For these pacing issues and the less scientific aspects of this book, I took it down one star. To be honest, I can imagine<i> The Martian</i> taking three years to write and this one taking half a year, or something of the sort. Regardless, this book was fun and I'd recommend it. I'll definitely read it again too - I'm sure there's a lot to still discover in the details.<br />
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.fi/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge I put this in category 49: A new book of 2017 - I switched Caraval from that to 'recommended by a librarian' since I picked it up from being on show at Lahti Library.<br />
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PS. I won't even<i> Apollo-gise</i> for all these puns, it was just too good of an opportunity to pass.</div>
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PPS. @ Alex, I hope you're doing well!! Thanks again for introducing Andy Weir to me! 😀</div>
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Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-15602611847331300382017-12-07T15:25:00.000+00:002017-12-07T15:27:31.838+00:00They Both Die at the End - Adam Silvera<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'How often do you find yourself on train that's having a blackout with an eighteen-year old kid and his Lego house as he's on his way to the cemetery to visit his mother's headstone? Exactly. That's Instagram-worthy.'</b></i><br />
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This is the latest book I've finished so now I'm actually on track with these! Hooray! I guess you should expect mostly radio silence from me for the next week and a little (read: until my exams are done). This was another high-quality audiobook because I can actually make time for those while walking to uni and back.<br />
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The book was a heart-wrenching story, seriously. You'd think that with a title like <i>They Both Die at the End</i>, you'd be prepared for, well, the two main characters both dying. Well, you'd be wrong - I was not prepared for it in the slightest.<br />
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Anyway, in <i>They Both Die at the End </i>Mateo and Rufus both get the call from Death-Cast that they are going to die that day. They both find themselves in need of someone to spend their last day with and meet through the Last Friend app. Together, they set off to have a lifetime of friendship and adventures in one day.<br />
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Like I said, this book was terribly heart-wrenching, and I was absolutely totally not crying by the end of it. It was wonderful and real and awful and I really enjoyed it even when I knew how it was all going to end. If I had to mark it down for something, it would be for the suddenness of the ending... then again, what else can you do, when the ending is like that? Thankfully, this book wasn't a cop-out like, say, <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/everything-everything-nikola-yoon.html"><i>Everything, Everything</i></a> by Nikola Yoon and actually followed through on its premise.</div>
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Mateo and Rufus were both very strong characters with their own voices, and their friendship was really precious and believable. They also came from different backgrounds both culturally and societally, and through them the book got to deal with varying issues that teenagers have to face. Rufus has lived a life you can look back to with happiness even if he doesn't want to die, while Mateo has played it safe and passed opportunities, only to find himself on the list of the dying anyway.<br />
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<i><b>'We can get a handshake going when we meet, but until then I promise to be the Mario to your Luigi. Except I won't hog the spotlight. Where shall we meet?'</b></i><br />
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There were also many side plots in this book that expored the other ways in which Death-Cast would influence the world: What if a famous celebrity died? What is it like to work for the company? What if you weren't sure if the call you got was real? What if you thought you were invincible, just because you weren't called? Some of them are not as fleshed out as others, but they served to make the universe as a whole much more interesting. The book is structured so that it names the character from whose point of view each chapter is from and then the time, so that you know how long they have left, tops. That worked quite well, in my opinion.<br />
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I took a look at the other works of Adam Silvera, <i>History is All You Left Me</i> and <i>More Happy Than Not</i>, and they both seem... depressing, also. I might need to wait for a while before giving them a read, since I haven't gotten over this one yet. But I will read them too, one day!<br />
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Next up, when it comes to audiobooks, you can expect me to review <i>The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane</i>, which I started after finishing this one. With my Mandarin Chinese studies and all that, I'm trying to get a feel of the culture, literature and anything else about China. It's been pretty good so far. <i> </i></div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-78612259975322243452017-11-28T16:23:00.001+00:002017-11-29T10:06:22.516+00:00The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzi Lee<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>''I am thinking that today we are leaving on our Grand Tour', I reply, 'And I'm not going to waste any of it.''</i></b></div>
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I finished this book recently and it says a lot that I didn't have much feels by the ending, which was clearly meant to make me emotional. Oh well. I stuck with it because I was curious in a morbid how can you tie up something so oddly mismatched -sort of manner. It wasn't a terrible book, just... not that good for me.</div>
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Points for the well-read audiobook narrated by Christian Coulson. To me, he <i>was</i> Monty, and everyone else along the way. I'd absolutely read other things by him if I didn't find the idea of Monty reading something else so strange. Seriously, narrating audiobooks is a talent we should give Academy Awards and the such for.</div>
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<i>The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue</i> (shall I just call it <i>Guide</i> for short from here on?) is set in the 1700s, where Henry 'Monty' Montague, son to a lord, is going to have a Grand Tour with his best friend and secret love, Percy, before they're separated from one another. Yes, it's a LGBT book and yes, it's on the back cover so I can tell you that. Actually, Monty is bisexual and that's cool because there's generally not enough representation et cetera, et cetera.</div>
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Anyway, the Grand Tour starts quite promisingly (even after his sister Felicity and a companion nominated by his father tag along), but then they end up in possession of something they <i>definitely</i> shouldn't have and have to flee through several European countries. And it gets <i>weird</i>. As in, around 40% it sidesteps into a weird side plot that turns out to be the actual plot, and I have to admit it wasn't what I wanted from this book. The story also felt long (I think it's over 500 pages / 10 hours but it felt like much more, which is never good), probably because I was so floored by the new plot that was apparently the main one.</div>
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<i>Guide</i> is very clearly something I like to call <i>'Europe written by Americans'</i>. What does that mean, you ask? It's when you read a book, watch a movie or anything of the sort in which the characters are in awe of their European surroundings, saying <i>Paris</i> in the dreamy tone you would use for <i>filet mignon</i> or something. Written with an admiration I found so foreign it took me ten minutes to decide the author could only be American. And it's a bit annoying, to be honest, because it makes the <i>Europe</i> seem unrealistic, nothing like the continent I've come to know.</div>
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The relationship between Monty and Percy was just as cute as it was incredibly predictable. There were very few things I couldn't have seen coming from the very beginning, and I can't decide if that means I actually got what I set out to read or if it was just a good old-fashioned flaw.</div>
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On the other hand, there is a sequel coming out next year from Felicity's point of view, with girl pirates and all, and it would be completely unlike me to miss it.<br />
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge... eh, you know the drill by now, surely. I need to step up my game to find those couple of missing books at this rate.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-53761751973460695552017-11-25T22:48:00.001+00:002017-11-25T22:48:41.750+00:00Teemestarin kirja - Emmi Itäranta<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><b>'Kaikki maailmassa ei ole ihmisten. Tee ja vesi eivät kuulu teemestareille, vaan teemestarit kuuluvat teelle ja vedelle. Olemme veden vartijoita, mutta ennen kaikkea olemme sen palvelijoita.'</b></i></div>
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<i><b>'All in the world is not men's. Tea and water don't belong to the tea masters, but tea masters belong to tea and water. We are the guardians of water, but most of all we are its servants.'</b></i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">I finished this book at my favourite tea place on the<br />day it closed down ;o;</td></tr>
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Hello again!</div>
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Yet another dystopia, yes, I am aware. I've been meaning to read this one ever since I picked it up some two years ago, and I finally got around to it as part of my Finland 100 thing. It has a blue and white cover too! Here's also a Finnish book I recommend you read in English, as the Finnish and English versions of the book were written side by side, so you'll get the authentic experience, kind of. <a href="https://pikkuunen.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/pikkuunen-lukupiiri-teemestarin-kirja/">Pikkuunen</a> is actually going to host a web reading group on this book on her blog soon, so it was a good time for me to read it.</div>
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<i>Teemestarin kirja</i> (lit. <i>The Book of the Tea Master</i>, but the English edition is called <i>Memory of Water</i>. There's also lots of translations to other languages!) is the story of Noria Kaitio, a tea master in a world where some sort of catastrophe has turned water into a scarce resource. She finds herself guarding a secret that could cost her everything, but her and her best friend are also working on uncovering something long lost...<br />
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It was a great read, to me. It was refreshing to read something that felt, at the same time, so Finnish but also so foreign. There's a lot of Chinese tea ceremony -remnant elements in this book, blended with the normal, and it just <i>worked</i>. It's also beautiful writing in general.<br />
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Both Noria and her friend Sanja were really cool characters. It's always nice when the female mains are so self-sufficient (there's no romance in this book whatsoever, weird. I made a no romance tag since some people just hate that very deeply, you're welcome!). Noria especially spends most of the book completely on her own, and she grows a lot throughout it.<br />
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It was also a very well-written and thoughtful book. It flows both slow and fast, like water, and pauses to wonder and question. It felt depressingly real, with hints of global warming and other such catastophes. I also really enjoyed the 'not everything is humans'' aspect I picked my top quote for. It's a good thing to remember in this time of seemingly endless human greed. I suppose really the only reason I didn't give it five stars but four is because as a whole, the experience wasn't quite as life-changing as it could have been (it's easy to compare it to <i><a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/the-handmaids-tale-margaret-atwood.html">The Handmaid's Tale</a></i> since I read these so close to each other).<br />
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge I couldn't find a place for this (haha, surprising isn't it?). I mean, I guess it would count for something I only know a little bit (tea ceremony?) but I bet myself I'll find something I know even less about before year end!</div>
<br />Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-77100286002046243892017-11-23T18:58:00.002+00:002017-11-23T18:58:52.437+00:00The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>"There is more than one kind of freedom," said Aunt Lydia. "Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are given freedom from. Don't underrate it."</b></i></div>
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I've been meaning to read this book for a while because dystopias. On the other hand, I anticipated it being a depressing experience so I've not been in any hurry to do it... And yeah, it was pretty grim.</div>
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The Handmaid's Tale is another one of those always upsettingly current dystopian books like <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/brave-new-world-aldous-huxley.html"><i>Brave New World</i></a> and <i>1984</i> (<i>The Handmaid's Tale</i> was written in 1984, which Margaret Atwood said was 'corny'). It's set in a world in which women have been stripped of their autonomy, prohibited from reading, owning things, and 'freedom to'. Any sort of plot synopsis honestly feels like I'd be butchering this story, because there's so much depth to it that I could analyse it for hours and still be just at the tip of the iceberg. Here we go anyway.</div>
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Offred, the main character who never gets an actual name, is placed as a handmaid for a Commander to give him and his wife a child. She is of the unfortunate transfer period as the country that was the United States of America becomes the Republic of Gilead. She had a husband and a child and a life, so she's able to sharply contrast the current world order to the old and is unwilling to accept the change the way she should.</div>
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It's purposefully vague and somewhat out of order, and you find out about the world bit by bit. I thought it would annoy me at first, but after I got into it, I was so interested in finding out more, even if it was at a slower pace.</div>
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<b><i>'It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.'</i></b></div>
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The book has a very heavily metafictional epilogue of sorts which I don't want to further spoil from you, but it's very interesting and intelligent. It was so metafictional that I thought the book had ended and I was listening to the afterword.</div>
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The actual afterword by Atwood on this book was also very enlightening. She says that she was inspired by her travels behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, and she was determined not to add any concepts, ideas or technology that did not already exist. It's set in the US because it's her way of retaliating against the <i>'it couldn't happen here'</i> mentality of the people she told about her experiences. She also calls it an anti-prediction: if a story like this can be told in such a detail, then maybe we can make sure it won't become reality. I'm definitely on board with that.</div>
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All in all, <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i> is a very harrowing read, with kind of an open ending. It plays on human emotion and humans themselves, and I find I keep thinking about it almost every day, even now that I finished it some two weeks ago. When is it acceptable to start reading again a book you just finished?</div>
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I gave this a 5/5 without thinking about it much, because I'm not sure if a book has ever affected me quite so much. It's probably my favourite dystopia, and I read quite a lot of those. I'd recommend it without qualms to anyone and everyone, though I'm not sure how the reading experience would change if you were not a woman and inherently, Offred.</div>
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge I put this in category 12: A book about politics and politicians. Because at least in part, that's what this book is, among so many other things. Politics.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-73134880054132604832017-11-08T14:28:00.000+00:002017-11-08T14:28:32.464+00:00Turtles All the Way Down - John Green<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'I wanted to tell her that I was getting better, because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: It was a hurdle you jumpted over, or a battle you won. Illness is a story told in the past tense.'</b></i></div>
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This is the first book John Green has written since <i>The Fault in Our Stars </i>came out five years ago, and obviously I wanted to check it out! I'm curious and a hipster like that. Gotta read it before the movie comes out. So I went to buy it from Waterstones the day it came out. I read it within a week or so, but... yeah, I've been quite busy with uni and when I have free time, I've been reading, not reviewing. Whoops. Apparently I've not reviewed any John Green books on this blog, but I've read <i>The Fault in Our Stars</i>, <i>Paper Towns</i> and most of <i>Looking For Alaska</i>. Obviously, this book has the highest expectations of perhaps anything ever, coming after <i>TFIOS</i>, and while I don't think it was quite as 'good' (more on this later), it was still good.</div>
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Previously, I've said that John Green's books are these great epics and stories bigger than life, and that's why they appeal to teenagers who don't normally get to go on these grand adventures. <i>Turtles All the Way Dow</i>n is... not that. It's big and ambitious in the way life is while not being very grand at all.</div>
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Anyway, the basic idea is that sixteen-year old Aza accidentally stumbles upon the case of her childhood friend Davis's missing millionaire father. Aza and Davis reconnect more or less, but they're also both very caught up in their own lives. Aza's best friend Daisy really wants to pursue the missing millionaire part, and Aza finds a kindred soul in the son of the millionaire, whose little brother just wants dad to come back home. Aza herself is suffering from OCD, which is a tightening loop of intrusive thoughts (turtles all the way down) and makes even the smallest things all too difficult.</div>
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The biggest downfall of the book is that it just attempts at being way too much, It wants to be a realistic portrayal of OCD, love, friendship, class differences, grief, family and all these other things, but of course it makes the different parts all kind of flat. It's also full of John Green's signature super philosophical no teenager talks like that conversations that sound extremely awkward if you think about it too much. This is really how you'll decide if you'll love or hate John Green's works: do you get put off by teenagers texting about<i> the difficulty of defining self</i> at night?</div>
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<b><i>'Our hearts were broken in the same places. That's something like love, but maybe not quite the thing itself.'</i></b></div>
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This book is a tricky thing to actually review, because I know all of my friends either really like or really don't like <i>The Fault in Our Stars</i>. And while I don't think John Green is the best author in existence or anything, I have to admit he simply must have done something right to get to where he is.</div>
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And I thought Turtles All the Way Down was quite good, really. Not quite <i>Looking for Alaska</i> good, but better than <i>Paper Towns</i> and somehow less annoying than <i>TFIOS</i>. The latter is very 'good' plot-wise but has these super unrealistic and annoying bits that really hindered my experience, while <i>Turtles</i> is almost the opposite.</div>
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<i>Turtles</i> is philosophical and wants to be vey mature and all those things, but it also has some moments of genuine wisdom and feelings. Also lots of points for the portrayal of OCD as something that's not nice and desirable. This book leaves a lot to be desired (and I think in some ways that's the point), but somehow I enjoyed it quite a lot, and after I put it down, I wanted to pick it up again immediately.</div>
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I ended up giving this a 4/5 on the former grounds, but I acknowledge that this book is defnitely not for everyone, so I didn't put it in my recommendations label. If you think you'd like it, you probably will, but it's weirdly different from John Green's previous works.</div>
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For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I couldn't shoehorn this in (again). By the way, I just found out what 'shoehorn' means (it's a kenkälusikka :D)</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-87322151852559704142017-10-24T21:13:00.000+01:002017-10-24T21:13:31.875+01:00It Only Happens in the Movies - Holly Bourne<div style="text-align: center;">
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I picked this book pretty much right away when it came out, seeing how impressed I was with <i><a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/am-i-normal-yet-holly-bourne.html">Am I Normal Yet?</a> </i>by the same author when I read it two months ago. This book is not a part of <i>The Spinster Club</i> series, but a stand-alone story. Like <i>Am I Normal Yet?</i>, this book also had a really cool feminism aspect that I really appreciated.</div>
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<i>It Only Happens in the Movies</i> is a lot of fun. It's the story of Audrey, who's father left her family for another woman, who's mum has been drinking a lot since then, who's boyfriend left her in a traumatic manner and who no longer believes in romance movies. She gets a job at an independent cinema and meets her coworker Harry, who's a bad boy womanizer and everything she doesn't need in her life, and yet...</div>
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This book is many kinds of lovely. It talks about real issues that come with being young but also about what love and friendship are and when you should or shouldn't give a person a second chance. It was also a surprising book; I thought I knew what was happening, but then there were two separate plot twists that I hadn't anticipated, and it felt like a refreshing experience overall. It was also a very earnest story about what it's like to be young.<br />
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I liked Audrey a lot as a character. She's very shaken by what's been going on in her life and even angry about it sometimes, but she didn't get on my nerves too often. I appreciate that. All the side characters were also very much alive - this is one of those books were everyone except her is a side character, really. This is her story.<br />
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I liked the themes: there were many important messages I think people often need to hear. What if your parent just doesn't take care of you? What if you have a life planned for yourself and all of a sudden the base it's gone and you let it slip away? We're often told to decide everything as teenagers but in reality I'm in unversity and I still don't really have the answers. That's okay. I think we should talk about that more often.<br />
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I decided to give this book a 4/5 because while I did like it a lot, it was not quite as good as <i>Am I Normal Yet?</i> and it was ultimately kind of forgettable. I finished it maybe a week ago but today I struggle to remember what it was even about.</div>
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Less importantly: this is kind of unbelievable, but this book is the second British (English, more specifically) contemporary book I've read lately (the first one was <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/me-before-you-jojo-moyes.html" style="font-style: italic;">Me Before You</a>, and yes, I mentioned this in my review) in which the main character dislikes films with subtitles. Seriously, my not-native-English-speaker-self is so offended that there's a privilege in not wanting to indulge in other cultures like that. Ew. Audrey even states that she's never watched a subtitled film before, but still claims to love cinema???? Please explain.</div>
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge I put this in category 18: The are no less than four words in a book's name.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-42097815107438686182017-10-22T14:56:00.002+01:002017-11-02T17:27:11.949+00:00Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>'In a few short months, I had gone from a friendly, optimistic, confident woman to a confused girl with a nervous stammer who second-guessed every thought that went through her head and rationalized every bad decision she made.'</b></i></div>
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(The full title of this book is <i>Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny</i>, so I'm sure you'll understand why I wanted to shorten it a little bit.)</div>
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Hello! I've been reading too many books and reviewing too few lately, so my apologies if these feel a bit short right now.</div>
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So yeah, I totally read a book written by a Playboy Bunny. It was a litle awkward to make small talk about to people. But with Hugh Hefner's recent passing, I started thinking - I don't actually know all that much about life at the Playboy Mansion. I don't think Holly Madison is the best source of information there is, but for my purposes her book was pretty decent. I never watched <i>The Girls Next Door</i> (I must've been too young?) so I'm pretty sure I missed some of the 'while that was happening, this was going on behind the scenes' stuff. That's okay though.</div>
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<i>Down the Rabbit Hole</i> is a memoir of Holly Madison, starting before her introduction to the Playboy Mansion and following her through her seven years there, from a visitor to Hugh Hefner's number one girlfriend. Finally, there's her exploits and reinvention afterwards.</div>
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Of course, there's many ways in which to view this book. On one hand, she comes across as very likeable and her motivations understandable - she wrote this book herself, after all. But on the other hand, there's a strong undercurrent of <i>why would you do that</i> and <i>why would you stay</i>. Because of that, I had to spend a considerable amount of time justifying her actions while reading the book, just like she did to herself.</div>
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Another problem with this book was that since it's an autobiography, there's a lot of '<i>all the other girls were so mean to me even though I'm nothing but kind!!'</i> which had me thinking there might actually be two sides to the story - but only one that gets put on paper. It's a very gossipy book and almost everyone other than Holly herself gets dragged through the dirt. Hence, it would be really interesting to hear what someone else had to say about all of this...<br />
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This book felt a little bit too long, and I have to admit that sometimes I was also confused about the timeline. I'll mark that down as 'there wasn't much to say about that year' but on the other hand I felt like the book didn't tell me all that much of the everyday, which I definitely wanted more of anyway. Ultimately, it was an enterntaining experience I found myself picking up every so often, but it won't change my life or anything.</div>
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge I put this in category 48: A book about something which you know only a little bit. Kinda obvious I suppose.</div>
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Holly Madison has since published a second book called <i>The Vegas Diaries</i>. I might have to give that one a look at least because I feel like a kind of know her now. I'm hoping it'll be like checking an old acquintance's Facebook or something.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-18390460919839143062017-10-12T13:26:00.002+01:002017-10-12T13:29:00.122+01:00Love & Gelato - Jenna Evans Welch<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>'"You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it's for the same two things."'</i></b></div>
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<b><i>"Love and gelato."'</i></b></div>
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I picked this up from the library maybe 1.5 weeks ago? I don't know, it had been on my tbr list and honestly, the Aberdeen Central Library doesn't have as great of a range as back home so I just take what I can.</div>
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Really though, I have a love for summer books. You know, books about sunrises and grass and adventures and ice cream in which life seems a lot less complex than normally. So this looking a whole lot like a summer book, I gravitated towards it. Fair warning, I convinced Daniel to make both pizza and pasta with me while I was reading this, so it's definitely a dangerous piece of literature. They were both very good dishes though, so it definitely helped me get in the Florence mood and all that.</div>
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Anyway, <i>Love & Gelato</i> is set in Italy, where 16-year old Lina has to go meet a father she's never known after her mum passed away. She's still grieving and it's difficult to be so far from home in the States without anyone she knows. It was, however, her mother's dying wish that she gets to know her father, and Lina has her mother's journal so they can experience Florence together. She also makes friends, including the kind Ren who lives in a gingerbread house essentially next door and all of his friends.</div>
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Something I enjoyed about this book was how little emphasis there was on the romance aspect. Sure, that is a thing, but moreover it's a book about family and grief and blood ties and moving on. It was a very refreshing read because of that.</div>
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The description of location in this book was kind of breathtaking. It made me want to visit Florence so bad, to carry this with me and walk in Lina and Ren's footsteps. That is a sign that the description is well-written, in my opinion; when you can see it in your mind so clearly you can't help wanting to see it for real.</div>
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By setting, this book reminded me of <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/anna-and-french-kiss-stephanie-perkins.html" style="font-style: italic;">Anna and the French Kiss</a>; American girl has to go to a lovely European city for the time of her life, yet is unwilling and feels sorry for herself. However, unlike Anna, Lina had a very real reason to be upset and not want to be there, so this book takes the cake by comparison. On the other hand, <i>Anna</i> was maybe more enjoyable as a read, maybe because of being more laid back and silly. Make of that what you will.</div>
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I'll give this a 4/5 because it was different and well-written, especially the description of places, but it wasn't a life-changing experience by any means. Actually, now that I finished it a couple of days ago, I can't really remember what happened in it. Also, I'll read almost any young adult books if they seem decent and are not set in the US.</div>
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With this, I finally get to tick off category 30 from the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge: There's a word 'feel/feeling in a book's name'! I never thought it would be so difficult to find one of those!</div>
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Also, the next book by Welch, <i>Love & Luck</i>, is coming out next year. That one will be set in Ireland and I'll be happy to give it a read once it's out!<br />
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Next up will be <i>It Only Happens in the Movies</i> by Holly Bourne 'cause I'm nearly finished reading that! Reasons to be excited! :)</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-87818697194482323682017-10-11T19:19:00.003+01:002017-11-08T14:37:14.243+00:00Doctor Who: Shada - Gareth Roberts<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>'Chris reflected that a horrific place like this, with all the odds so grotesquely stacked against him, was where the Doctor magnificently belonged.'</i></b></div>
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(I read this book because J made me but the timing of this post is pretty rad, check out the teaser for the complete, feature length version they're (finally) making based of the actual episode <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67qiRyJ35nw">here</a>. I might post about it when it's out because it's really quite cool!)</div>
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I love <i>Doctor Who</i> but I hadn't read any of the novels before. <i>Shada</i>, though, was a unaired serial of the 17th series of <i>Doctor Who</i> with a script by Douglas Adams. That's pretty exciting, right?</div>
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<i>Shada</i> follows the Fourth Doctor and Romana to Cambridge, where a fellow Time Lord, Professor Chronotis, has found a home for himself. Upon leaving Gallifrey, he took with him something that proves to be dangerous. There's also a couple of grad students, Clare and Chris, cutely in love with each other but not able to admit it.</div>
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<i><b>'But where was Chris? Why wasn't he there with her, starting off on this amazing journey? 'Aha!' the Doctor was saying, but she didn't want his 'Aha!' — she wanted Chris's 'Aha!' And where was Chris?' </b></i></div>
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Because it's <i>Doctor Who</i>, there's also monster of the week - Skagra, who wants to take over the world with the use of Professor Chronotis's little souvenir. He's a cool villain and I definitely felt the urgency in stopping him.</div>
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I listened to this as an audiobook, with the sound effects and all, which was excellent. It was read by Lalla Ward, who plays Romana, and included David Brierley as K-9. What's not to love about that? The world needs more a) female narration b) female everything actually and c) K-9.</div>
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<i><b>'At the woman's side, somehow looking equally concerned, was a metal box about three feet by two feet with 'K-9' emblazoned on its side in what somebody had obviously thought was a futuristic typeface. From the front of the box sprouted what was clearly meant to be a head, with a glowing red screen for eyes, a snout with a nozzle at the end and two miniature radar dishes in place of ears. It sort of looked, a bit, like a dog. It even had an antenna for a tail and, for a campy finishing touch, a tartan collar.'</b></i></div>
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You've probably figured this out by now, but this book definitely assumes that you know your <i>Doctor Who</i>. It doesn't really give you any general rundown of the background or any of that, but just plunges you in the deep end. Nothing wrong about that of course, but just something to keep in mind. I think no one assumes you pick up one of these and use it as your stepping stone into the wider universe, but the other way around.</div>
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All the characters are excellent, which isn't exactly surprising. It's hard to pick a favourite but my top three would be Skagra's ship that was tweaked to shower him with compliments, Clare and Romana. Girl power! Also, I feel like the Doctor was actually the weakest character here. He came across as a bit annoyed all the time (Which may have to do with Lalla Ward having been married to Tom Baker at one point, J tells me).</div>
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The writing is also excellent, very fun and smart and kind of tongue-in-cheek. There's a lot of both dialogue and description but it all kind of fits together.</div>
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All in all, Shada is an excellent Doctor Who story. It's weird and fantastical and fun and pretty much what you're meant to get. The dialogue and characters are more than enough to make up for the fact that the plot itself may not have been the most innovative out there. If I had to change something, I'd cut out around a hundred pages of nothing really happening, though I understand that could be detrimental to the experience. Still, sometimes I zoned out while listening to this, and I want to mark it down for that.</div>
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For the <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/helmet-2017.html">Helmet 2017</a> reading challenge I could not find a spot for this. This is getting so tricky!</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653356321685763540.post-2650407444929509162017-09-27T15:33:00.001+01:002017-09-27T15:33:06.430+01:00The Reason You're Alive - Matthew Quick<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><b>'That morning I'd been worried I might be scalped, and here I was among the warmest people I will probably ever meet, no matter how long I live.'</b></i></div>
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Daniel got me this book as a gift! It's seemingly becoming a tradition, as he got me <a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/every-exquisite-thing-matthew-quick.html"><i>Every Exquisite Thing</i></a> last year. I'm very happy about that, naturally. And since you can't actually see it from a picture, I have to tell you that the letters are imprinted on the dustjacket and the cover is really nice to the touch and I love running my fingers across it. Points for that!</div>
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(clears throat) Anyway, you might know by now that <i>The Silver Linings Playbook</i> is my favourite book and I'm fully on board to read everything Matthew Quick writes in the future and the past, so as soon as this book was announced, I was excited! (I've also reviewed <i><a href="http://skiesandfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sorta-like-rockstar-matthew-quick.html">Sorta Like a Rockstar</a> </i>on this blog!)</div>
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David Granger is a 68-year old Vietnam War veteran who's recently had a brain tumour removed. He's trying to find closure with the war and the awful things he did and trying to live a life without his wife, whom he lost three decades ago. This book is a story he writes for someone else to read, a story about his life.<br />
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David is on paper a person I can't imagine liking. He's very politically incorrect, a republican and against gun control. He is, however, very funny and likeable and I found myself really fond of him by the end of the book. This book was very honest and heartfelt, and most of it really did come from David's character. I think there is something to be said there about how we should give people another chance beyond that first impression and not just judge them based on how we think they should be. Hm.<br />
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I also enjoyed all of the side characters - David's liberal art-dealer son Hank, granddaughter Ella, Gay Timmy and Gay Johnny, his genetically Vietnamese-American best friend Sue and Clayton Fire Bear. They all had their own stories and lives and it was refreshing to see them through David's politically incorrect eyes.</div>
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Unfortunately, I'm quite convinced American readers will enjoy this book more than I did or ever could. This book is about as American as they get, and I just don't have the cultural heritage to understand this in the way someone else could. There's baseball and Republican politics and history of oppression and the Vietnam War itself, all topics I don't really have a personal connection to. And these are just the first examples that came to my mind.<br />
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I suppose it would be stupid to ask for Matthew Quick to write something that wasn't so inherently American, especially when it's something that provides a lot of charm for his works, but it's just a shame to realise. Quite possibly this is also the reason I feel like giving it 4/5 instead of 5/5 - my own shortcomings. There was also something about the ending that, even though it made me extremely happy, just worked out a little too conveniently.</div>
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All in all though, this book was short and heartfelt and upbeat and that is essentially what I love Matthew Quick's works for. It has a lot of themes I've come to recognise as his, and I think this will be my second favourite work of his so far. I cannot wait for his next book!<br />
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Also, at mum if you're reading this, I think you'd like this one! I'll bring it with me for Christmas! :)</div>
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For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I'll put this in category 1: A book's name is beautiful. Funny story, I've actually been saving category 18: There are no less than four words in a book's name for this, but now that I read this... I understand the meaning behind the name and I don't think I'll read anything so beautifully named this year.</div>
Wishmakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03648142443872887004noreply@blogger.com1