The Light We Lost - Jill Santopolo

'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.

There was so much beauty in our life together.'

Hello!

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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,

The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella

'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.'

Hello!

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!

The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (hereafter just Dreamworld) is the first book in the very popular Shopaholic 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

PS. These reviews are of books I read earlier in spring - missing between this one and the previous is The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli, because I honestly have nothing to say about that book. It was okay. Not my favourite by a mile.

Kaikki anteeksi - Laura Manninen

Heyo!

Kaikki anteeksi ('Everything Forgiven', 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...

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.

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?

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. 

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. 

Rikinkeltainen taivas - Kjell Westö

'What's happened in the book?' Daniel asked me many times while I was reading this.

'Nothing much,' I responded, every time.

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.

Rikinkeltainen taivas ('Sulfur-Yellow Sky', free translation) is Helsinki-based author Kjell Westö's seventh novel. Like his previous works, the original text is in Swedish ('Den svavelgula himlen') 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? Fight Club 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.

It's a little weird, granted. There's no real drama arc or really anything else. However, Westö writes these characters so real 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.

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?

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.

A Darker Shade of Magic - V.E Schwab

''Do you trust anything?' he countered, rubbing his wrist. 'Or anyone, for that matter?'

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.''

Hello again!

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.

A Darker Shade of Magic 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Every Day - David Levithan

'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.'

Hello!

Every Day 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Artemis - Andy Weir

'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."'

Hi!

I was absolutely over the Moon about this book even before it came out. Seriously, ever since I read The Martian by Andy Weir two years ago, I've been pretty much waiting for this one. I've been on an orbit around it, seriously. Almost like a lunatic.

I must admit, this and The Martian are almost like from different planets. The Martian was a very contained solitary adventure with a solid plot, filled with fun and jokes and written mostly like a diary. Artemis, 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.

The writing of this book wasn't necessarily like a sea of tranquility, 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.

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.

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 The Martian 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.

For the Helmet 2017 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.

PS. I won't even Apollo-gise for all these puns, it was just too good of an opportunity to pass.

PPS. @ Alex, I hope you're doing well!! Thanks again for introducing Andy Weir to me! 😀

They Both Die at the End - Adam Silvera

'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.'

Hello!

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.

The book was a heart-wrenching story, seriously. You'd think that with a title like They Both Die at the End, 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.

Anyway, in They Both Die at the End 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.

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, Everything, Everything by Nikola Yoon and actually followed through on its premise.

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.

'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?'

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.

I took a look at the other works of Adam Silvera, History is All You Left Me and More Happy Than Not, 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!

Next up, when it comes to audiobooks, you can expect me to review The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, 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.   

Teemestarin kirja - Emmi Itäranta

'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.'

'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.'

I finished this book at my favourite tea place on the
day it closed down ;o;

Hello again!

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. Pikkuunen 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.

Teemestarin kirja (lit. The Book of the Tea Master, but the English edition is called Memory of Water.  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...

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 worked. It's also beautiful writing in general.

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.

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 The Handmaid's Tale since I read these so close to each other).

For the Helmet 2017 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!

Turtles All the Way Down - John Green

'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.'

Heyo!

This is the first book John Green has written since The Fault in Our Stars 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 The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns and most of Looking For Alaska. Obviously, this book has the highest expectations of perhaps anything ever, coming after TFIOS, and while I don't think it was quite as 'good' (more on this later), it was still good.

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. Turtles All the Way Down is... not that. It's big and ambitious in the way life is while not being very grand at all.

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.

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 the difficulty of defining self at night?

'Our hearts were broken in the same places. That's something like love, but maybe not quite the thing itself.'

This book is a tricky thing to actually review, because I know all of my friends either really like or really don't like The Fault in Our Stars. 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.

And I thought Turtles All the Way Down was quite good, really. Not quite Looking for Alaska good, but better than Paper Towns and somehow less annoying than TFIOS. The latter is very 'good' plot-wise but has these super unrealistic and annoying bits that really hindered my experience, while Turtles is almost the opposite.

Turtles 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.

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.

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)

It Only Happens in the Movies - Holly Bourne

Hello!

I picked this book pretty much right away when it came out, seeing how impressed I was with Am I Normal Yet? by the same author when I read it two months ago. This book is not a part of The Spinster Club series, but a stand-alone story. Like Am I Normal Yet?, this book also had a really cool feminism aspect that I really appreciated.

It Only Happens in the Movies 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...

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.

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.

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.

I decided to give this book a 4/5 because while I did like it a lot, it was not quite as good as Am I Normal Yet? 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.

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 Me Before You, 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.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 18: The are no less than four words in a book's name.

Love & Gelato - Jenna Evans Welch

'"You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it's for the same two things."'

"What?"

"Love and gelato."'

Hello!

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.

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.

Anyway, Love & Gelato 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.

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.

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.

By setting, this book reminded me of Anna and the French Kiss; 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, Anna was maybe more enjoyable as a read, maybe because of being more laid back and silly. Make of that what you will.

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.

With this, I finally get to tick off category 30 from the Helmet 2017 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!

Also, the next book by Welch, Love & Luck, 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!

Next up will be It Only Happens in the Movies by Holly Bourne 'cause I'm nearly finished reading that! Reasons to be excited! :)

Doctor Who: Shada - Gareth Roberts

'Chris reflected that a horrific place like this, with all the odds so grotesquely stacked against him, was where the Doctor magnificently belonged.'

Hello!

(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 here. I might post about it when it's out because it's really quite cool!)

 I love Doctor Who but I hadn't read any of the novels before. Shada, though, was a unaired serial of the 17th series of Doctor Who with a script by Douglas Adams. That's pretty exciting, right?

Shada 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.

'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?' 

Because it's Doctor Who, 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.

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.

'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.'

You've probably figured this out by now, but this book definitely assumes that you know your Doctor Who. 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.

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).

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.

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.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I could not find a spot for this. This is getting so tricky!

The Reason You're Alive - Matthew Quick

'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.'

Hello!

Daniel got me this book as a gift! It's seemingly becoming a tradition, as he got me Every Exquisite Thing 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!

(clears throat) Anyway, you might know by now that The Silver Linings Playbook 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 Sorta Like a Rockstar on this blog!)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Also, at mum if you're reading this, I think you'd like this one! I'll bring it with me for Christmas! :)

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.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

''Can I get you a drink?' the man yelled, over the top of the next song. I wondered whether the DJ had ever considered introducing a five-minute break between records, to allow people to go to the bar or the lavatory in peace. Perhaps I should suggest that to him later.
'No, thank you,' I said. 'I don't want to accept a drink from you, because then I would be obliged to purchase one for you in return, and I'm simply not interested in spending two drinks' worth of time with you.'' 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is Gail Honeyman's debut work. It's a very heartfelt, funny and sad story about a young woman who's good at going through the movements of life, but less so at actually living. She's very sharp but hasn't been able to make friends, and an event from her childhood has caused her to have a strained relationship with her mother. She makes an acquintance in a colleague called Raymond, and things start to seem better for her when she meets someone she feels she could love. She changes her wardrobe and starts working on her social skills. Of course, changing your whole life is never really that easy.

There's a lot of real problems in this book. It talks a lot about loneliness and what it does to a person, how you can be lonely even when in a crowd,  and how difficult it can be to live when you're so used to just surviving your days. It talks about what it's like to not be in touch with your family or even other people in general. When your life passes you by but you don't know how to stop it. Eleanor feels deeply relatable even though I don't actually share most of her life experiences.

Eleanor is great as a character. As you can see from my chosen quote, she's very sharp and funny without even meaning to be, and her inner dialogue is such a pleasure to read. I loved it and I loved her. Raymond is also great, he's late when Eleanor is early, messy when she's clean... you get the idea. They make a wonderful duo, and the dynamic of their friendship is great. Also so many points for the fact that Eleanor's life isn't suddenly made so much better by her falling in love and all her problems disappearing. That's all too common in books like this, and it makes people think depression and whatnot other mental problems are gone just like that.

Even though I liked this, I can't shake the feeling this book should've been around 100 pages shorter (it stands at 385 or so as it is). I saw a really good discussion about this in a Facebook group a couple of days ago, actually. It was mentioned that it's important not to cut 'day to day' life from your book because it's equally as important as what's happening. I'd like to argue that a book doesn't feel too long (case in point: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, or any of the others, really) if it's good enough. With this one though, sometimes I was dreadfully bored, in between the actual events. I think it could have been more concise.

I also saw the ending coming many miles away, though it had one twist I hadn't expected. About the twist (no spoilers though): some people say they didn't like it, but to me it really worked. Hm. To each their own, to each their own.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 16: A book which has got some award abroad. It was actually difficult finding a category for this, am I nearing the end yet?

Ruskeat Tytöt - Koko Hubara

'Minun tarinani ei ole se, kun ohikulkijat vetelevät minua silmäripsistä, kun ihmiset koskettelevat kyselemättä hiuksiani, ja kertovat minulle kuinka olen manteli ja maitokahvi ja mokkalatte ja vadelmasuklaa ja seepra ja panda ja hevonen ja apina ja kookospähkinä ja Oreo-keksi.'

'My story is not how passersby pull my eyelashes, when people touch my hair without asking and tell me how I'm an almond and coffee with milk and a mocha latte and raspberry chocolate and a zebra and a panda and a horse and a monkey and a coconut and an Oreo.' 

Hello again!

This is the first book I actually reserved from the local library. I queued for it for nearly two months and I was lucky to still get it while I'm here for the summer. That I will allow to speak volumes of how much I wanted to read it. I would have happily queued for this for two years, if I needed to.

I don't know where I should start in talking about this. There's so much I want to say, because everything in this book is important and the only way I'll get through it all is by writing the book again, here. I'll try my best to say what matters the most. Bear with me, please.

Let me just tell you up front that Ruskeat Tytöt ('Brown Girls') is a very personal work, one born out of necessity. The author wrote this book because there wasn't a work like it when she needed one in her life. She wrote it because there's not enough representation of people like her; girls who have lived in Finland her whole life but are the 'wrong' colour and therefore are treated like strangers.

This book talks about both racism and feminism, hence the two parts of the name. More accurately, it's about intersectional feminism; the idea that various aspects of our lives affect us at the same time. As in, the author's is both a girl and brown at all times, and both of these things make her often invisible in the media and affect how other people view her.

The author Koko Hubara is also the founder of Ruskeat Tytöt, the first Finnish 'from us to us' media for brown girls. There's some information about it in English here if you're interested. It matters because the representations given to us in the media are always coloured by whether or not the author understands the implications of race in their work. We white people don't always think about that, because we don't grow up constantly thinking about our own whiteness in a world where we perceive it to be the norm. I get that now, having read this book.

The book is divided into chapters about different subjects; the way girls are (and black girls aren't) portayed in media, 30 facts about Yemen, sexual violence is sexual violence, the way the collection of statistics in Finland makes brown girls seem nonexistent. They're all important things, and I think it's vital that we acknowledge them as problems and maybe even some as solutions. Therefore I'd like to suggest that reading this is almost as important even if you're not a Brown Girl. I say 'almost as' because to a Brown Girl this could be a lifeline, while to me it's something I want to make a change in. 

'Näen itseni näköisiä ihmisiä suomalaisessa mediassa yleensä vain silloin, kun aiheena ovat turvapaikanhakijat, islamisaatio, terrorismi, tyttöjen ympärileikkauset, raiskaukset ja muut suututtavat tragediat, samaan aikaan kun valkoisilla ihmisillä on nähtävänään ja kulutettavanaan esitystapoja enemmän kuin taivaalla on tähtiä.'

'I see people that look like me in Finnish media usually only when the topics are asylum seekers, islamisation, terrorism, the circumcision of girls, rapes and other tragedies to make you angry, meanwhile white people have ways of representation to use and to spend more than there are stars in the sky.'

I also want to tell you that the language of this book is amazing; it's beautiful and thoughtful and deeply touching. It's not amazing 'for a brown person' or anything like that (I feel like mentioning this is important just in case anyone thought anything different); it's absolutely gorgeous for any person and I wish I could formulate my thoughts half as well. It's one of the best-written books I'll read this year.

I decided, after thinking about it for a couple of days, to rate this 4/5. It's because it sometimes jars a bit, which isn't an experience Just because I didn't give this a full 5/5 doesn't mean that I don't think this is one of the most important books I will read this year. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't read it no matter who you are or where you are, regardless of the constraints of your colour or gender or preconceptions. Of course, the language can be a problem, but I'm sure Brown Girls feel these things no matter where they are. And us White Girls and Boys can always be better. Also, this is a book I'll buy for my own shelf without any qualms when I see it. I want to have a copy of it to give to my friends to read.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 42: A debut book!

Caraval - Stephanie Garber

'Do you always focus on what you're giving up, rather than what you'll be gaining? Some things are worth pursuit regardless of the cost.'

This book came out earlier this year and became a huge thing pretty much immediately and was translated to 25 languages quicker than a heartbeat. So naturally when I saw it at the library, it felt like I should and I would read it no matter what.

This book has two sisters, Scarlett and Donatella (or just Tella), leave their home island and their cruel father for a magical game called Caraval. Tella, the adventurous and excited one, believes this could be their way out, but Scarlett believes her arranged marriage to a stranger will get her and her sister away from their father.

Caraval is a game Scarlett has heard many stories of, and in which you can't trust anything you hear. It's hosted by a man called Legend, who supposedly plays each game wearing a different face. You can't trust anything you hear in Caraval, and Scarlett has to wonder if the sailor who brought her there has ulterior motives too. And then things go from bad to worse when Tella gets kidnapped and whoever finds her will win the game... and a wish.

Scarlett was fairly likeable to me, and even though I wanted to slap some sense into her a couple of times, she still felt relatable. Same goes for Tella, even though the two of them were fairly night and day as far as sisters go. The side characters were okay but most of them would have been better if they had gotten more time and development.

'She wrapped her arms around Scarlett like only a sister can. Fiercely like a kitten that has just gotten its claws and wants to rip the whole world to shreds so that everything would turn out alright.'

The plot was surprisingly interesting and full of twists, and it gave me many wow moments throughout the story. I was impressed with that, because I thought beforehand that the plot would be where this book was going to trip itself up; becoming a dull copy of every 

other story like this. Turns out that wasn't actually the problem.

My knee-jerk reaction was to give this a full five stars, but today I've given it another thought and am starting to get annoyed with the general lack of worldbuilding (how gorgeous this would have been in a properly built world) and the few cop-outs it goes through instead of properly defining its own rules. It's actually something to say about how interesting the plot was that I ended up giving it four stars. Quite excited for the sequel, too. I'd be so happy if it expanded on the world of this, but I bet it'll be all too easy to just stick to the same formula as this book, since it's been so popular. Apparently we no longer care for worldbuilding in our 'high fantasy' books. Some of the plot twists towards the end also felt unpolished and weak, as if the author could no longer be bothered to write them out in full.

Also, there's a really odd thing where Scarlett sees emotions and colours, and it felt... weird. It didn't really fit in the tone of the book, and it wasn't explained until it had already been happening for some time. It didn't really add anything to this book, in my opinion.

Regardless, I enjoyed Caraval a lot and I'll be reading this series probably until the bitter end. The second book, coming out in 2018, is still untitled. (I hope it comes out sooooonnnn!)

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 49: A new book of 2017!

Rikki - Reija Glad

'Joskus äiti on niin kuin pieni ja Eeva sen äiti. Ja pieni äiti on ärsyttävä eikä halua pukea.'

'Sometimes mum is like small and Eeva its mum. And small mum is annoying and doesn't want to get dressed.'

Rikki ('Broken') is Reija Glad's first novel. It won third prize in a Robustos (the publisher who's published most of Siiri Enoranta's works and other stuff) miniature novel competition in 2015. I got this from the library's new stuff shelf and checked it out on Goodreads, where it has, as I write this, one rating of three stars, a golden middle road. I thought that was quite compelling - what does three mean to this one person? Also, the book is just shy of a hundred pages and I thought I could definitely give it another rating, maybe make the decision easier for someone else. Or something. Also, it sounded cool.

Anyway, this book is very unsettling at its heart. It's divided into short little chapters that each tell their own story of sorts. They're given creepy telltale names like 'Dad's Car', 'Bunny' and 'River'. The book itself is about a family, or more specifically the children of one, who grow up poor, with a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic, absent father. The book is from the point of view of one of the children, though the book never actually tells you which one. I do have my guess.

It's mostly written in short, meaningful sentences. The children witness things no child (or person) should and can't process them properly. Many things in this book are, indeed, broken. Their mother isn't able to take care of the kids because of her own problems, and the children in turn do their best but can't really lead normal and happy childhoods. The family is broken and their home town in Northern Finland seems fairly depressed at best.

This book was sort of disturbing in its desperation, but I like to think it also had tiny little whisps of hope, which are also alluded to in the back cover. I think I'll check out Glad's other works if she publishes more one day. (You can always dream, yes?) My only hope is that for a full length novel, the work would have more happiness as well. For a work of this length however, it worked quite well, even if it does feel like a bit too much sometimes. No one's supposed to live a life like this, though I think that was kind of the point too. I'd recommend this book and I quite enjoyed it, but I feel like it requires a specific sort of mindset so I'll just leave that up to you if you want to check it out. For me, it was absolutely worth the read. I hope more people check it out.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 26: A family story! Think the category is looking for a longer story but this was definitely about family so...

Pollomuhku ja posityyhtynen - Jaana Kapari-Jatta

'Suomentaja ei käännäkään sanoja vaan ajatuksia.'

'A Finnish translator doesn't, after all, translate words but thoughts.'

Heyo!

Pollomuhku ja posityyhtynen ('Bubotuber and Pigwidgeon') was my reading marathon number two book number one - a book by the Finnish translator of Harry Potter on her perhaps biggest and probably most influential work to date; translating this beloved series from beginning to end (including The Cursed Child and other stuff like that too).

This book answers most of the questions the translator often gets asked: how do you translate all those names, how does the fame of the series feel, does she miss them now that it's fin(n)ished... And it's really quite interesting. Even though I've always comprehended that someone does indeed translate all of these books, I've never fully realised just how much work goes into it. I'll be sure to appreciate it more in the future and maybe even read more translated works.

It's clear from the way Kapari-Jatta talks about her work that she has a strong passion for it. The only book I've actually read with her translation (since I've happily read Harry Potters in English) is Holes by Louis Sachar. I would say that's a good translation as well. Pollomuhku talks very in depth (sometimes too much so) about the creative process of the translator as she attempts to understand the mind of the author and the complexities of the world they have created. She also really thought deep and hard about how to translate all those imaginary words while preserving their spirit. This is especially important since these books started out as children's books and you can't reasonably expect every Finnish child to know enough English to make the connections.

Another thing I thought was cool: translating hints. If you've read these books before, you'll probably know that J.K. Rowling adds a ton of hints in her books about what will happen in the future instalments. The translator talks about how the hints need to be of the same quality as originally - not more or less clear. It's another thing I've mostly taken for granted, translating these things skillfully, but they do take a lot of thought, especially in Rowling's case.

I might even have given this a five but sometimes it just trailed off a bit too much and repeated the same things many times. For a (by default Finnish skills are required) Harry Potter fan interested in languages I would recommend this without hesitation regardless!

Also something to appreciate: this cover was made by Mika Launis, who also made all the Finnish Harry Potter covers! I really like his work and I think these two people definitely made the Finnish editions of Harry Potter what they are.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in a category I've been dreading filling because it's so niche.... 25: A book where nobody dies! Yay!!!

The Story of Kullervo - J.R.R. Tolkien

'For the paths led ever deeper

Deeper deeper into darkness

Deeper deeper into sorrow

Into woe and into horror.'

The Story of Kullervo is, in his own words, J.R.R Tolkien's first wandering into writing an epic. It was written when he was a 22-year old Oxford undergraduate. Makes one wonder, what am I doing with my life, right? And although it was written in 1915, it was forgotten for a hundred years and only came out in book form in 2015. It was also his first time writing prose instead of what he had been doing prior to this – poetry.

The reason this is so interesting from a Finn's point of view is that it's based on a story from our national epic, Kalevala. While Tolkien's knowledge on it is obviously and sadly vastly superior to mine, I don't think anyone has managed to escape primary education without being somewhat familiar with it. The stories that I believe are most well known from it are the stories of Aino, and indeed Kullervo. Both are quite tragic and depressing. The stories themselves are compiled by Elias Lönnrot in between 1828 and 1835 from Finnish (pagan) myths. 

Tolkien didn't approve of the English translation of Kalevala, however. He tried to read it in Finnish and took out a dictionary from the library - and failed miserably. A receipt still exists from the library giving him a fine for not returning that dictionary in time, by the way. So we're doing okay, too. I could tell you a lot of stuff about Kalevala and its inception and its poetic metre, for it's very exciting and interesting and there's a lot to talk about, but back to Kullervo.

Kullervo is hauled as Tolkien's most tragic hero - the book sleeve knows to tell me this. And the story is certainly a tragedy, though I won't talk about that in detail in case you'd like to go into it and be surprised. It's a tragedy written in prose mixed with poetry, imitating the runos of Kalevala. The Story of Kullervo is only 40 or so pages of this book, followed by fairly helpful notes from the editor and an essay by Tolkien on Kalevala itself.

The writing here is good, but it's not what I expect to be Tolkien's best (I'm not familiar with Middle-Earth at all and that's just awful; I'm actually only attempting to fix that this year), and it's a very rough work. It's clearly a labour of love though, and the passion for the source material is evident in the (un-)finished book.

Sadly, it's difficult to give this a higher rating than a 4/5. I liked unconditionally what I got, but it doesn't change the fact that The Story of Kullervo was never finished. I don't mean to say that it's merely unpolished (which it is), but that the ending, the latter part of the story, cuts off and is written as a synopsis. 'This is what would happen next if I wrote it.' I want you to read this book as well, if only because it made me want to pick up Kalevala again for the first time since I was rid of it in school, but I can't fully recommend something that you're almost bound to be a little disappointed with.

There's definitely something deeply compelling about Kalevala. I don't know if you knew this, but I love the Donald Duck comics. Out of those, Don Rosa, who may well be one of three best-known artists, has written The Quest for Kalevala among his other Donald Duck works. Seriously. I definitely recommend reading that if you're interested, he drew a beautiful, realistic version of Helsinki and very cool Iku-Turso and stuff. (I really want you to read it but if you can't be bothered to right now, just look at that amazing Iku-Turso art here!!!) His other works are really cool too. ...Why am I rambling about Kalevala again?

I'll convince/let Daniel read this library copy when he's visiting so he can tell you his more Tolkien-infused and less Kalevala-centered thoughts!

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 9: A book inspired by some work of art!