Tumbledown Manor

*I received this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown is a meaty contemporary chick lit novel. Yes, maybe I made up a genre just now. It’s not exactly what most people would call “fluff”; a term I actually object to. The main character is about a writer named Lisa, who is celebrating her 50^th birthday when she accidentally finds out her husband is cheating on her. So, considering she’s originally from Australia, Lisa decides to take off and move back there to deal with both the breakdown of her marriage and also writer’s block. The latter part – the insight into her creative process – was my favourite part of the whole novel. She is writing a trilogy of historical novels (with a heavy dose of sexy romance) about the Bronte sisters, and Tumbledown Manor was also infused with random interesting tidbits about their lives. Yes, there were hindsight diagnoses and assigning medical conditions based on descriptions of people, but still, the writing process was fun to read about.

The novel also features a fixer-upper project –obvious from the title. I like these kinds of settings: a dilapidated manor-house, somewhere in the outback, that a single lady with gumption is trying to fix up. I mean, she wasn’t that far from a big city and even had access to takeaway deliveries and hardware stores, so it wasn’t completely unmanageable.

The novel also features a careful romance, it’s subtle and slow-burning with a couple of tropey “simple misunderstandings”. Still, I could get on board with it, and I liked she took her time getting over her 20+ year marriage. Oh, and there was also a slight mystery, but it was completely in the background.

Now, there were some aspects to the novel that I didn’t fully enjoy. Firstly, it featured a couple of odd-sounding metaphors and similes. The text seemed to be completely saturated with them to the point where it was difficult to actually understand what the author was trying to say. It did get better as the novel progressed! Secondly, the main character definitely did not act her age, in the sense that she was really immature at times and even silly. She just plain wasn’t as intelligent as I would expect a grown-ass woman to be. One of my pet peeves: she used an odd abbreviated text speech with her daughter, which I find kind of unlikely for a writer. I’ve met a few, and they all manage to type out most words, and wouldn’t be caught saying “Gr8”. I know she was perhaps trying to relate to her daughter but lady, use your words.

Also, I feel like the novel was trying to handle too many “issues” at once. It just seemed A LOT for one single person. The author did say she knows women (plural!) that these things have happened to, so it felt really artificial piling them all on the shoulders of this one lady. Even though the book outlined these possible issues, they weren’t really dealt with. For instance, Lisa’s son was openly gay and she accepted it as she should, but some other characters had weird issues with Ted’s sexuality and they were never actually addressed or analysed. Sidenote: I don’t think someone being gay is an issue. However, I took issue with the way people refused to accept it. That homophobia wasn’t really addressed within the family, which I find unrealistic. What is more, Lisa’s daughter Portia had a suspected eating disorder and that again was almost ignored by most of her family. Then there was a brief mention of cancer; of course also divorce, disability, racism. It just felt a lot for one woman, unless she’s a character on Grey’s Anatomy.

Thus, I am giving this book 3,5 stars. I rounded it up to 4 on Goodreads, but I actually think I’m right smack in the middle of “I liked it” and “I really liked it”. I know, this makes no sense. Tumbledown Manor wasn’t a spectacular literary masterpiece but it was fun to read, never a trudge, and it helped in getting me out of a reading slump. Cozy, is how I would describe it: I laughed out loud, I teared up. Also, I have gotten a bit more into Australian fiction lately. The author is originally from New Zealand so maybe Australasian fiction then :). If you like contemporaries or chick lit (in the best possible sense of the word), then go for it!

"After a lifetime of enabling others, surely she'd earned the right to make her own choices, no matter how outlandish?"

How to Be a Woman - Caitlin Moran

Review by Coll
4 Stars

So I decided to read this book because it was the chosen one for April for Emma Watson’s Goodreads group, Our Shared Shelf. I became incredibly curious about it after seeing the numerous comments that popped up on the thread announcing the book. Some people were excited to read it, but a good many were up in arms about the book, asking for it to be changed to something else. It was obvious to me that many people were offended by the book and I was interested to see what my feeling on it would be.

Caitlin Moran wears many hats; she is an English journalist, author, and broadcaster.  She is definitely someone who is not afraid to say what is on their mind and she often does it in a comedic and explicit way. How to Be a Woman is a nonfiction book that is a mix of feminism, memoir, and humor. Moran uses her personal experiences and relates them to issues women face every day such as sexism, objectification, abortion and reproductive choices, sex, and many preconceived notions that the world holds about women that are untrue in many cases. I found it very refreshing to hear someone speak in such a blunt and forthright way about so many topics that are often deemed to be touchy subjects. To me it was nice to read the words of a woman who was basically saying “Fuck no, you can’t tell me who I should be or what I can and can’t do.” 

I want to point out that although the book is titled How to Be a Woman, do not take the title literally, which some people have seemed to. At no point is Moran instructing you on “how to be a woman”, and she even says something to that effect in the postscript.  What she is doing is relating her life to the presumption of what a woman has been, and often still is, expected to be, and then tying it all together with her opinion on the matter.
I will not deny that Moran is crude in her writing and curses, A LOT. She is also very blunt and brutally honest, and I, for one, really loved that about the book. I am not sure if it is because I was raised in Jersey and now live in Brooklyn so I am used to crude vernacular, but the language did not bother me one bit. I think it added to the humor of the book and was another level of not acting like a “woman” because she was cursing up a storm. I found it to be refreshing. :-)

The chapters in this book are not meant to apply to everyone, nor are Moran’s opinions meant to apply to everyone. I think that when reading this book it is important to keep in mind that it is an opinionated piece, full of her personal experiences and thoughts. No one is saying you have to believe or agree with everything she says, but she does make some very good points. I took the book for what it was worth and found it interesting, humorous, and insightful at times. Yes, there were some things I did not agree with, but then I am sure not everyone agrees with my opinions either, nor do I expect them to.

All in all I really did enjoy this book and thought it was a fun read, and I am glad Emma chose it for the book club. I learned some things and often found the book very relatable, I felt a little empowered by it, and of course it made me laugh at times which is a plus. I do recommend reading How to Be a Woman, but I also recommend not going into it thinking Moran is trying to guide or advise you on how to actually be a woman, or that you need to agree with all her views. After all, isn’t that supposed to be the beauty of the world, everyone having his or her own opinion? Sometimes I think we all tend to forget that.

“I’m neither “pro-women” nor “anti-men.” I’m just “Thumbs up for the six billion.”

Interested in How to Be a Woman? Check it out on Goodreads.

#FridayReads - April 22

Tiina

Friday again! Time really flies lately. I have finished two books this week so hopefully the great slump of 2016 is on its way out.  Saying that, I didn’t read a lick yesterday, so there’s that… Obviously, I’m not all the way out of the woods yet, but my main aims this weekend is to make a dent in a review book Tumbledown Manor by Helen Brown. It’s about a woman whose life is upended so she moves (back) to Australia to fix up an old manor/farm-house. That’s what I understood from the synopsis. I’m only one chapter in, but it seems promising, and features a slightly more mature heroine (I mean, she’s 40, not 75, but most romance novels feature 27-year-olds). I also started the second novel in the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. This one is called Dream Thieves and I can’t say anything because spoilers. The first one is quirky and weird, and the best audiobook experience I’ve ever had. I’m reading this in physical copy, but if I like where the series is headed, I’ll pick the last two up on audio. The last book in the series just came out so it’s a good series to marathon if that’s your jam. That’s about it. Also, for reference, all the books I’m planning to read this weekend wouldn’t even be half of King’s The Stand that Coll is reading. That lady is a champ! ;-)

Colleen

Yay Friday! Freedom from work and time to nerd out on books and video games!  This weekend I plan on getting a good chunk of Admiral read (by Sean Decker), which I talked about in last week’s #FridayReads (Space Opera! Wooooooo!). I am also reading The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond by Christophe Galfard. That book is, well, pretty much what the title says. It is a non-fiction science / astronomy book that takes you through quantum physics, black holes, string theory, the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes, etc. and it is all explained in a way that is easily understandable. Being a space geek, I am super amped about this book and have a hard time putting it down, so much so that I almost missed my subway stop yesterday. This weekend I would also like to get started on The Demon Girl’s Song by Susan Jane Bigelow. This is a fantasy book about a young girl whose dream is to escape her small town, but instead her fate turns out to be having a 1,000 year old demon dug into her head. She watches as everything around her starts to fall apart and she must go on a quest to regain her identity and try to save the world and everything she knows. I have been a fantasy nerd for AGES so I am very excited for this book. I would like to start more books this weekend, but as Tiina mentioned I am still in a long—term relationship with The Stand. At least it is a happy relationship. Come to think of it, referring to a dystopian horror book as a happy relationship seems a little funny. ;-)

Enjoy your weekend everyone. We wish you plenty of quality reading time.

Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) - Sylvain Neuvel

Review by Coll
3.5 Stars

**I received a copy of this ebook from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Love, confusion, love, confusion, that is what I felt while reading this book. (As if I were in a teenage romance.) Once I finished I spent a lot of time trying to get my thoughts and feelings together and I think I have finally done that. Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel, is a science fiction / fantasy book that is the first in the series Themis Files. A young girl named Rose falls into a whole in the earth after wandering into the woods to investigate a turquoise light. When a rescue team finds her and begins work to extract her from the hole, they come to find that she is lying in a giant metal hand sitting amidst a turquoise light. Seventeen years later the mystery of this artefact has still yet to be unearthed (pun intended) and the lead physicist / scientist on the study team just so happens to be the grown up Rose. The military and government are pushing to figure out the secret of the hand and look for more pieces, trying to determine what it means to humanity, and no cost is too great for this mission.

The first thing you should know about is the style that Sleeping Giants is written in. The majority is recorded in interview form, with Rose and the rest of her team being questioned by an unknown interrogator. Occasionally there will be chapters thrown in where a character is speaking by themselves as they leave a recorded log, and there are other chapters of reports from the military or other agencies. Neuvel did an amazing job with this writing style, having the dialogue flow easily and into a cohesive story.  You always know who is talking and you are able to get the emotions being conveyed by the characters with no problem. I loved the use of this writing style and felt it really added to the story.

Okay, so the first half of Sleeping Giants I absolutely adored. I was so completely absorbed and felt like it could be a five-star book. Then, well, then the second half just started to let me down. At first the book was exciting, intriguing, and even had that “Shit just got real!” moment that takes a story to a whole new level. I was into it and loving it! Then something happened that caught me off guard and the conditions seemed to change. Suddenly it felt like things were being left out and the plot shift made everything feel a little disjointed. The order in which things were spoken about seemed a little off and I found myself thinking back to certain moments and saying to myself “Well what ended up happening with that?” Some things were resolved, some were not, and I felt the book left you with too many cliffhangers. I know, I know, it is the first in a series so there should be cliffhangers, but in this case there were just too many.

Unfortunately for me, I did not feel a connection with any of the characters. Not much background was given on them so it was hard to get to know them and care much. I also felt like characters behaviors were not reacted to as they would be in normal relationships. For example (vague example as to not give spoilers) a character would do something awful and/or criminal and be slightly punished, but then it would go treated like all they did was jaywalk, or some other trivial offense. Things like that, along with some other character interactions and behaviors, felt a little inhuman to me. 

I must say though that all in all, the story idea is brilliant. The things I can imagine happening and the direction I feel the story can take are just so exciting to me. I went from loving this book to being unsure of it, but the entire time I remained a huge fan the main idea behind it all. I know it is often hard to have the first book in a series be perfect because of all the things that cannot yet be given away, and I am hoping that was just the case with this book. As I said, the first half I wanted to give five stars to! Unfortunately there was that disconnect between the first and second half. All that being said, I will continue on with the series and I do recommend giving Sleeping Giants a shot with the hope that the rest of the series will be as amazing as I feel it can be.

Interested in Sleeping Giants? Check it out on Goodreads.

Paper Girls

*I received this from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review*

Another comic book review, this time Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, and Matthew Wilson. Now, I may not have professed my undying love for Saga here yet (another creation by Brian K Vaughan), so this is that moment. The first three volumes of that series were one of the first comics I read and they are still in my top three favourites (series-wise; also includes Bitch Planet and Locke & Key). However, I couldn’t immerse myself in the story of this one as easily. And that’s saying something when a space opera-ish Romeo and Juliet story is easier to grasp than four teenage girls on their paper route. OK, just kidding, that’s not even close to all this series is about… It’s set in America in the 1980s and features four young paper girls. They are delivering newspapers after Halloween when, well, shit hits the fan. And this is where it gets confusing. There are weird ninja-types, and then suddenly an apocalyptic atmosphere over everything, and the twists keep on coming. Oh, and maybe also dinosaurs? Nothing makes sense, and a lot of it is not meant to be figured out. I just found the story extremely confusing and not exactly enjoyable. Just a sidenote: in the end there were some very, very clever allusions – to what, I won’t say, as it can be spoilery – that made me smirk. However, even after finishing, I’ve absolutely no clue where this series is going. I mean the genre aspect became a little bit clearer, but that’s about it. I know, I’m being such a tease! It might be gearing towards a battle-esque situation, or it can just go a more technical route. And yes, I am well aware none of you understand what on Earth I’m on about.

I love the fact that the main characters are women, well, young teenage girls. There seems to be a fair amount of diversity as well, in other characters. There is also some excellent linguistic humour but, once again, I’m afraid I can’t exactly specify. Of course, it ended on a cliff-hanger so be prepared for that.

The actual artwork took some time to getting used to. I prefer clear and vibrantly coloured panels so this was a bit of a strange experience. The colour scheme here is more muted, leaning towards blues and purples. I guess the cover gives that away, as well. The events do take place during dawn, so of course it’s not all sunshine and games on the page. I did enjoy the way characters were drawn, it’s just the colour scheme that slightly irked me throughout. 

All in all, this first volume was a three star read for me. It was interesting enough to finish, but nothing amazing as of yet. I feel like it was trying to be too obscure and difficult to understand. I mean, it’s important to strike that balance between figuring some things out and being confused; in this case, it was just complete bewilderment. Also, just a thought, but I think if I’d had a paper copy of this comic it would’ve been easier to read. For instance, there was one part where the panels ran vertically instead of horizontally – as in, I had to turn my head – and I’m not sure if that was a justified artistic choice. So yes, this book wasn’t exactly easy to grasp and read, but not necessarily in a bad way.

I think if you’re into the unknown, then you might want to give this novel a try. It’s definitely like nothing I’ve ever read before. I won’t be buying the issues or eagerly awaiting the sequel, but because of the respect I have for the creators, I might still pick up the next volume before I make my decision about this series. I may have kept this review just a tad vague, but I’d say that’s pretty much what you’ll get with first volume of Paper Girls. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If you love being kept on your toes and in the dark, then this comic may just be for you. If not, you might want to wait for the second volume to be published before you check the series out.

#FridayReads - April 15

Tiina

Honesty time. I’m still in a slump. Are you tired of hearing it? Well, I’m tired of living it so we all have to deal. At least I’m not cranky about it, though! My main aim this weekend is to finish off that post-American Civil War romance by Elizabeth Lowell, and then start the first volume of a new comic book series – Paper Girls – by Brian K Vaughan (the writer of Saga!), Cliff Chiang (illustrator of the new Wonder Woman) and Matt Wilson. It’s by Image Comics and I tend to like everything they put out (Bitch Planet, woohoo). That’s about it. Going to start slow. Maybe I’ll throw in an audiobook too.

Colleen

Well, Tiina might be Miss Slumpy but luckily she has not infected me with her ailment. This weekend I plan to finish up Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, which I talked about last week in #FridayReads. I also plan on starting a book that I have been looking forward to reading for months now (I was just waiting for the release date to get closer), Admiral (Evagardian #1) by Sean Danker. This is a military sci-fi/space opera book, so basically everything I love all rolled into one. It is about a man who awakens on a dead ship with the records indicating he is an Admiral in the military, although he has no recollection of this. Now he and his three surviving recruits must find a way to survive on the strange world they are marooned on. Then I am thinking of starting Much of Madness (Conexus Chronicles, #1) by S.E. Summa. Not sure I could do a quick description on this so let’s just say it is a Southern Gothic story that involves things such as a grimoire, Sin Eaters, Death, and an occult cat burglar. Good times. :-) Oh, and yeah, that whole thing with me reading The Stand is still going on. 1,300 page books don’t go by so quickly I suppose. ;-)


And you? What are you reading? You know we always want to know!

Ergodic literature

Now it’s time for my own little pet project – my love of collecting works of ergodic literature. Some people also call them illuminated novels. In a simplified manner, that means the text is accompanied by pictures or other added marginalia that represent or replace a certain part of the narrative. The most often quoted examples are Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and even Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. I actually prefer the term ergodic literature to illuminated novels in these instances, definitely in the case of House of Leaves.

House of Leaves

This term isn’t very widely used in the mainstream bookish media, eg Book Riot, most book blogs, or BookTube. Perhaps it’s academically too specific to be of any interest to anyone. However, the books that belong to this genre are definitely becoming extremely popular. So, even if you don’t know the name for the genre, you’ll recognise the books that belong to it after just a couple of initial characteristics. In brief, ergodic literature – as defined in Espen Aarseth’s Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature – means that the reader has to put in “non-trivial” effort to consume the text (p1-2). The word itself comes from the Greek words ergon and hodos, which mean “work” and “path”, respectively (ibid). Thus, the reader has to find their own meandering way through the narrative, but on a higher level than the regular movement of eyes and turning of pages. In most cases, the exact order in which to read the text is not indicated. So, ergodic literature means that a text has an added dimension (eg footnotes, pictures, text written in a different way, newpaper cutouts, clickable links in ebooks), and it is up to the reader which part to read first or not at all (many people skip the footnotes in Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell).

S.
(the book has been made to look
like an old library copy)

Now that the more academic part of the post is over, I think it’s a good idea to have examples. This isn’t an overly detailed post, but I thought you’d enjoy learning a new name to a genre of books you already know, and perhaps enjoy. A great example of a novel where the path of reading is not determined, is JJ Abrams’ and Doug Dorst’s S. The novel consists of a main narrative – a fictional book – and then added marginalia of two people’s conversation about the book and the fictional author of it. This is as Meta as it gets, people! There are added extras, too: actual scribbled upon napkins, postcards, slips of paper! It is the reader’s choice whether to read the in-text novel and margin notes consecutively, or first finish off the novel, and then reread the margin notes.

Note: that little bird picture
can be scanned via an app
for extra content! (Night Film)

Another interesting aspect of ergodic literature is that it is not defined by the type of media – it doesn’t have to be a print book. Ergodic literature refers to the reading experience and so an ebook or any other electronic medium can also be categorised as such. So here the ebook version of Night Film with its clickable links is the same as the print book of House of Leaves with disjointed footnotes and mismatched font size extravaganza. 

I have probably rattled on long enough about the definition and sure, you could just use the term illuminated texts. However, I prefer ergodic literature if only for the fact that it accurately shows how the same book could really be different for anyone. Yes, yes, you can say that about every book – two people might not see the same themes in a work or art – but the mixture of pictures, footnotes, regular and upside down text implies another layer of the reading experience.

Perhaps some examples, if you too think you’d love this interactive experience? The most famous one right now – in addition to the abovementioned – is Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, a novel made out of documents, interviews and chat transcripts. City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg was published in 2015 and includes document clippings as well. Dawn Kurtagich’s The Dead House also came out last year and it is once again told in newspaper clippings, diary excerpts and the like. Zachary Thomas Dodson’s Bats of the Republic: An Illuminated Novel (again from 2015) and could be seen as belonging to this genre, as the name suggests. A new one just about to be released is Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants (note: next week you can read Coll’s review on that). So you see how these novels are cropping up more lately. Of course, books like these have been around for a long time now, but it’s great to see them getting more and more love. Any guesses on what’s behind this new-found love of intricate, multimedia print books? Maybe our attention spans have become too short to just consume a “good old” print book with the text running from left to right (or right to left, depending on where you are), so we need every book to be made into a videogame-like experience or a Choose Your Own Adventure novel? I’m not sure what the theory is behind this new publishing phenomenon, but I for one am definitely enjoying it, and plan to collect a fair few of these books.

What about you? Have you ever thought how these books are called? Do you even care? Do you need a genre name for books you love? Or do you have any recommendations that I have most certainly missed?

My list: House of Leaves; S.; Illuminae; Night Film; Sleeping Giants; The Dead House, A Visit from the Goon Squad, City on Fire, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.

#FridayReads - April 8

Tiina
Right, book people. It’s Friday again! That means it’s time to find out what other people are reading. To start off, I’m in the middle of a giant book slump right now. I hope that’s not the case with you. But, my immediate plans are to finish off a fairytale retelling, or rather, an extension of one, about Snow White. Ever wondered what happened to her afterwards? Reflections of Queen Snow White might help you out there. In addition to that, I will hopefully manage to finish Book of Ivy by Amy Engel. It’s set in a dystopian world and I’ve heard ONLY good things about it. So far I am about a page and a half in, and it looks to be good and unique already. That’s it. Those are my tentative plans during this Great Slump of 2016. Fingers and toes crossed that you are not suffering from it, and have awesome reading plans.

Coll
Well, I am not going to lie, I may not get a ton of reading done this weekend. But I have my reasons! We just got the new Star Wars on Blu-Ray as well as the Hunger Games box set, so one day will be a marathon movie day. But I plan on making food from my Hunger Games cookbook when I marathon those, so there is still a book involved. ;-) I will still be fitting in a decent amount of reading though. First off I plan on finishing up The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I mentioned last Friday. I will be starting Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, a Sci-Fi book about a little girl who falls through the earth into a hole, and rescue workers discover she has landed in a giant metal hand. Thus begins a study into this rare and bizarre artifact and what secrets it holds. I am also in the mood for a graphic novel so I am thinking of reading the Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks, which is about the 369th infantry in WWI, an African American group who spent the most time in combat of all American units but never received the praise they deserved due to the discrimination of the time. Oh, and I am still working on the tome that is The Stand, of course. So yeah, those are my reading (and movie) plans for the weekend.


What about you? Any interesting reading (or movie) plans for the weekend?

Wolf by Wolf - Ryan Graudin

Review by Coll
5 Stars

As soon as I finished this book my first thought was “Oh crap, it’s over!” My second thought was “Okay now how long do I have to wait for book two?” My heart tells me that waiting more than a few seconds to continue with the story is unacceptable, but my brain tells me I will have to wait until November. I know I need to accept this, and I begrudgingly do.

Wolf by Wolf is a genre mashup of alternate history, historical fiction, and science fiction. The Axis Powers won the Second World War and Hitler’s Third Reich, along with Imperial Japan, now rule the world. Each year a motorcycle race, known as the Axis Tour, is held in which select members of the youth of Germany and Japan participate to commemorate the great victory. The time has arrived for the resistance movement to use the race as a chance to kill Hitler and bring about an uprising, and hopefully a new world. The secret weapon of the resistance is a young girl named Yael, a death camp escapee and the survivor of a painful and powerful medical experiment that left her with an ability known as Skinshifting. In other words, she can change her appearance at will. The plan is simple enough: kidnap last year’s first female victor, Adele Wolfe; impersonate her; win the race; kill Hitler. But when family, love, and murder are thrown into the plan, Yael needs to tread carefully and suppress her conscience if everything is to succeed.

Wolf by Wolf had me with its first line and kept a tight grip on me throughout the entire story. I have always loved alternate history books, and the sci-fi twist made this one appeal to me even more. Through present time (1956) and flashbacks, the book shows the tragic state of the world and invokes such a range of emotions. Graudin was able to weave so many elements into this story, combining action, drama, and history so seamlessly. Even though the book portrays an alternate history, it still includes a lot of true moments from the era of Hitler and the Nazi regime. The true historical elements included in the story, when woven into what could have been if WWII had ended differently, make for a very compelling tale. 

Graudin created a resistance movement in Wolf by Wolf that was full of such power and passion that you, as the reader, begin to feel a part of it. You are drawn to Yael, a girl who had a part of herself stolen away from her and was made to look like a person she had never been. As a result, she was unintentionally turned into the perfect weapon to use against the regime, a job that she voluntarily enlists herself for. There is so much raw emotion in Yael and we see how she has to fight to not be broken from the loss, heartache, and deception she has had to live through. I was so attached to her throughout the book and was terrified every time she was in danger, which is a sure sign of exceptional character development.

Throughout the book we are introduced to numerous characters, some who are present for just a short time and others who remain the duration of the story. What I found amazing was how I felt something for each character in the book, whether their time was fleeting or extensive. It is also almost impossible to completely hate any character, for at some point in the story you are made to feel sympathy for each person, even if you spent the majority of the time hating them. Graudin has a beautiful way of making each character seem so human and shows that their outcome has been determined by the world around them, some having no choice in how to behave. 

All in all, I adored this book. It had most of what I look for in a good book: character development, excitement, a range of emotions, detailed descriptions, and best of all, Wolf by Wolf was a great example of a story showing and not simply telling. This is one of my favorite books of the year so far and I shall sit here and wait patiently (but not without occasional complaining) for the next book in the series to come out.

“No lights. Just a darkness that swam in front of her eyes, holding so much (as all dark does): days mixing with lifetimes, swirling with dreams. She could almost hear the howls from her nightmares, pressing into her ears.”

Interested in Wolf by Wolf? Check it out on Goodreads.

#FridayReads - April 1

Coll

Well it is the first weekend in April, and it is supposed be be a rainy one here in New York, so it is a good time to start a few new books. This weekend I will be starting How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. This book was chosen for the month of April on the Emma Watson Goodreads book club, Our Shared Shelf. It has extreme mixed reviews so I am interested to read it and see what my feelings are on it. I also plan on starting The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. It is a sci-fi classic where the Moon is used as a penal colony for those who are no longer wanted on Earth for being rebellious, and these outcasts form their own libertarian society. I love me some sci-fi so I am looking forward to this book. Finally, because I feel like throwing myself into something incredibly epic, I will be reading the unabridged (1,300+ page) The Stand by Stephen King. My mom had me read this about 15 years ago and I figured it was about time I read it again. Only downside to this is every time someone near me sneezes or coughs I am pretty sure the world is about to end. ;-) So yeah, my weekend will consist of those three books (possibly a fourth), and some video games of course. 

Tiina

Friday again! I think most people’s favourite day of the week. At least after 5 pm! This week my reading fare isn’t going to be very complicated. I am starting a book about breathing therapy – non-fiction, obviously. It seems slightly loopy already, but the author is highly lauded in her field. Then, I will also start my April book club choice which is The Poisonwood Bible. It is a chunkster, but I have heard moderately good things and I’m excited to read it. Finally, I might dip in an out of a romance novel I have going on the side. Only Love (the cover has a shiny bright pink font to boot) is historical fiction set in 1868 in the Colorado Territory, and chronicles the everyday hardships young women, who were left alone after the Civil War, suffered during that time. Of course, the book isn’t too dark – or probably historically 100% accurate – since it’s a romance. Let’s be honest here, I’m just reading it for the love story anyway :). No shame!

What about you? You know we always want to know!