Irritated and impressed, Jonah turned to express the former, but a rueful apology already curled Reid’s lips. “Habit,” he said. “Sorry.” Vexation fading, Jonah couldn’t seem to pull away from the embarrassed light in the hazel eyes. “A useful habit.” Amber glints in the green brightened to gold, and the smile bloomed, cocksure. “Was that a word of approval?”

– Tamara Allen, The Only Gold

I think I mentioned this book a while back and well, I never did get round to reading it. In fact, I put it off to the point I completely forgot about it. Finally today I was in the laundry room waiting for my load to finish and hunting on my kindle for something to read, and this book was the only unread thing on it. So I began reading this afternoon and finished it this evening. I think perhaps I am a little disappointed after finishing? One one hand, i finished it in one day. On the other, I am feeling very bored and very lazy.

I thought the book started strongly but seemed to get a little waylaid toward the end- melodramatic, and even sappy in parts. I loved the way the author described the setting- even if I don’t know how accurate it is, I never felt these characters were modern ones placed in a vague historical setting. Jonah was a wonderful main character too. I always love seeing shy, difficult personalities given a chance to be a hero of their own story and I admire the author for the careful way she handled him, always staying true to his personality, letting him grow and change naturally as he came to terms with his loss and fell in love. The romance really was very sweet and well developed but although  Reid was also likeable, I could never quite get a grip on his personality for some reason, probably due to the ending.The ending really did make me go “what? am I reading the same book?” I was not  expecting it to suddenly become a mystery, and the action felt even more misplaced. The ending just left me feeling a little confused and kind of ruined the book for me.

Lexie Madison developed out of nothing like a Polaroid, she curled off the page and hung in the air like incense-smoke, a girl with my face and a life from a half-forgotten dream.

– Tana French, The Likeness

I do not usually read books like this, and I don’t know what drew me to this one. The premise of this book is so absurd. And yet this is a book that has kept me up until the small hours of the morning every night this week. When I first started this book I could barely even get through a single chapter and I spent weeks ignoring it, but then I picked it up again and something happened somewhere and suddenly I couldn’t put it down, I had to know more, I had to see just how it would all unravel.

When I finished it earlier today I was left feeling feeling exhausted and sad and not quite satisfied- the surreality of so much of it, too many loose ends, the rushed hea, too many bits i didn’t understand from not reading the first book- but still I loved it. The writing is beautiful and the characters are real and I was startled at how attached I became to them, by just how badly I wanted to believe in them, which only made it hurt to realize just what was going on under the beautiful exterior of the house they live in and their seemingly perfect friendship- just how broken they were. There were parts of this book that felt wholly unrealistic, but the characters were real and fascinating, which grounded the book and made it work. I also loved how lexie was always there, a character in her own right even though she was dead, and even the house seemed to take on a character of its own. The descriptions of the house were vivid and dreamy and it was just as fascinating and painful to learn about the history of the house and what it represented to so many people as it was to read about the actual characters. This book cost a lot more than i would usually pay, as do the authors other titles, but I will be getting in the woods and faithful place despite this.

“No, I’m wrong,” she said flatly, “I am afraid of you. Ignorance is always frightening, ignorance married to power is terrifying; and you don’t know what it is any more than I do. Do you? You don’t know what it can do, or what you can do with it…”
No, of course he didn’t. He had a stranger in his veins, a clamorous, calamitous stranger; and there was nothing he could say to comfort her, he thought perhaps there was no comfort left in the world.

– Chaz Brenchley,  The Tower of the King’s Daughter

My last week in halls seems to be passing rather quickly. I have fallen into the stay up all night, sleep all day routine very easily. I go to bed in the small hours and read until its light, eat breakfast, then go to sleep the day away. The first time I did that I slept the best I have in a long, long time. No strange dreams, no stirring awake at any point. I tried to capture that again but now I just feel tired from doing too little and sleeping too much at odd hours. I’m consuming masses amount of media to pass the time and keep my mind off upcoming results- lots of fic, watching and re watching the DVDs I have lying around, tearing through my books.

I think I’m doing a good job on my goal of reading 30 books this year and may yet increase it to 50.

I started reading A Song of Achilles, though I can’t seem to get into it. It’s an exotic setting but a fairly typical storyline- the ‘ugly’, unpopular kid meets the popular one who magically isn’t a jerk and then they fall in love despite their ‘differences’. The storyline is tired and I can’t connect with the characters. I don’t know, I might fall under its spell yet. I’ve also been trying to read the Spice & Wolf novels after loving the anime series, but I find myself torn between liking them and finding them deathly boring. I love the characters of Lawrence and Holo, especially Holo, and they are adorable together but at the end of the day its a book about a travelling merchant being a travelling merchant and I have no interest in economics or currency or whatever. It’s clear I don’t understand that kind of stuff either right?

I also finally managed to finish The Tower of the King’s Daughter, which is the first in a trilogy of fat high fantasy books set in a place called Outremer, which takes inspiration from the crusader kingdoms (source). I devoured the first part of the book in a matter of days but I had to set it aside as it started to get too angsty, and I only just got the courage to finish it the other day. I loved this book but I also hated it because it was just too gritty, too depressing. I spent the first part of the book growing to love the main character Marron, and enjoying watching him fall in love with Anton and praying for them to have their HEA and well MAJOR SPOILER alert that doesn’t happen, and Anton drops of the face of the planet in the second book and I just can’t. I grew to like the other characters but not as much as I loved those two, as much as I loved them together. END SPOILER. The quote is from that book, because they are beautifully written, the world building is incredible and I love the unusual setting, but reading these books leaves me feeling sad, leaves me grieving alongside the characters for all they could have had, all they lost and are still losing. The worst thing is that just as these characters are struggling to find their happy endings, I’ll be struggling through the rest of the trilogy looking for the same thing.

So after being thoroughly depressed by that book I sought out lighter fantasy, and I picked up another Lois McMaster Bujold book, after liking The Curse of Chalion. Chose the first in the sharing knife trilogy of hers- Beguilment– and am left not sure how to feel about it. It took me by surprise, for I thought it would be the typical girl goes on adventure and learns she is the special one who needs to save the world, but instead I spent the book ‘watching’ two amazing people fall in love in a realistic manner- sweet and funny and painful without ever wallowing in the angst. It rather surpassed my expectations, but I still felt a bit dissatisfied toward the end. It was sweet but I wanted more action, and I couldn’t quite get over the age difference (it’s well over 20 years between them, and 20 is generally my limit). One of my favourite fantasy series is the Immortals by Tamora Pierce and I bring that up as it also featured the much older man paired with a very young woman and I think perhaps it was handled better there. The relationship was better paced in the immortals- they worked through their differences in age and experience, and there was that push/pull that kept it exciting, and me on the edge of my seat, for all the books, and enough going on besides to make it all the more gripping. I am somewhat confused as to where these books are going plotwise, and the romance is all but resolved. I think there are going to be some issues with the male’s family next book so I’ll be reading on if only to answer- what could possibly happen next?

“But I, who knew him so well, could clearly see that his thoughts were elsewhere, and I detected a mixture of mingled uneasiness and expectation beneath that mask which he was wont to assume.”

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes

I’ve been leery of ebooks for a while. I simply can’t afford an e reader, and saw no need to install a reading app on my phone as I generally could buy my books for quite cheaply (the advantage of usually reading old, unpopular fantasy books is that they generally come quite cheap). Sadly there are some books which are simply not available as paperbacks, or are just too expensive to get hold of as paperback. So I finally caved and became the last person on the planet to install an e reader on my phone.

I quickly set about spending money I didn’t have on some books I’d been ogling for a while. Amazon one click is the devil. I first download a couple of m/m books I’d had my eye on- Dark Soul and The Only Gold. I’ve only gotten round to reading the former, which wasn’t much of a chore as this book was short. For the price I paid I expected a lot more, and I feel a little cheated. It was a good book, don’t get me wrong, I loved it actually, but I won’t be picking up the sequels. No way am I spending so much on something so short. As for The Only Gold, well, I’ve read such good reviews about it that I’m almost afraid of reading it- what happens if I end up disappointed? I’ve got such high expectations. So I’ll read it later.

I’ve also been taking advantage of the free classics. After watching the musical the Phantom of the Opera I was thinking of getting the book so I was pleased to find it available for free as an ebook. The book is very different from the musical. I remember sitting turning to my sister during the break of the musical and remarking “so are we supposed to be rooting for Christine and the phantom here?” in disbelief, or something along those lines, but whereas the musical was certainly not a love story like I had mistakenly thought, the book is even less so. It seems to be told from the point of a view of someone researching into the mystery of the ‘opera ghost’, and is written like a mystery with a touch of romance and horror. The writing is clunky, and hard to follow, with moments of startling beauty and intensity. Christine remains selfish and annoying, and Raoul is even whinier and more immature in the book, but the phantom is even more fascinating. After the end of the musical I came away with a certain love for the strange, unstable character and the book re-enforces it.

I also downloaded The Return of Sherlock Holmes and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. My only experience with Sherlock Holmes was the first season of the BBC series, which I liked but didn’t love. But I loved the Sherlock Holmes books. Holmes is another fascinating character, much like the phantom and, again like the phantom, you can see why they become so famous and so beloved. And Watson and his constant admiration of Holmes, and all his little observations of the man, is just lovely, and its clear why that spawned such a large fanfic base. XD I wonder if Holmes is really such a likeable character, or I just like him because of the way that Watson so carefully and affectionately describes him. XD I bought the complete collection for a grand total of 77p, and I’ve been reading them on and off when I don’t feel like reading anything heavier. They’re good fun.

So I’m enjoying my new ‘kindle’, and the books that its made available to me. The kindle android interface is nice and I like how instead of having to physically write quotes down, or take a picture of the page, I can just highlight sentences or paragraphs that I enjoy, or I can bookmark an entire ‘page’ when I enjoy a certain section. I like how portable it is too. I’ve been getting more reading done as I can read on my phone in the breaks between lectures (and OK, sometimes in especially boring lectures too!). Although I still prefer physical books. Reading on my tiny cell phone screen hurts after a long period of time. I’ve long been reading fanfic on my phone so I am used to ignoring that pain, but then I usually read shorter works on my phone, and leave longer works for my computer. I lay down for a Sherlock Holmes readathon for an afternoon and by the end my eyes were tired in a way they wouldn’t be if I was reading books. For certain reasons I may not be able to take any physical books to uni next year so I’m worried about what I will do. I had thought I could use my phone in aeroplane mode as a ‘kindle’ but it turns out that isn’t as great in theory. hmm :/

“I see that you do,” said Cazaril dryly. But was this drunken stupidity, or the world’s simplest form of assassination? A duel to first blood, approved practice and outlet for high spirits among young courtly hotheads, followed by The sword slipped, upon my honour! He ran upon it! and whatever number of paid witnesses one could afford to confirm it.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

Recently finished reading this book, picking it up looking for a quick and entertaining read, and it delievered for the most part but I was still left slightly disappointed.

The world of chalion was beautiful, and terrible, and I loved that despite how dark the book went at times, the writing remained light and filled with humour. Characters dry remarks made me laugh out loud, and Cazaril’s unimpressed views on court were especially humorous. Its a clever book too, that explores the idea of gods and their relationship with the world and its people in a fascinating manner, and a depth that fantasy rarely touches upon. I found this to be one of the strongest parts of the book.

However this book is not without flaws. I found myself rolling my eyes at the ‘twists’ the plot takes; at times events felt very…convenient. Everything fell together in a very neat manner, which does take away some of the tension as you know that everything will end up happily, all problems conveniently solved. And I didn’t feel attached or intrigued by any of the characters because I didn’t really think they came alive, they too felt like they were whatever the plot required of them. Perhaps events were supposed to feel so manipulated, with the theme of the gods, but I still didn’t like it.

I’d be lying if I said this book didn’t grip me,as I finished it in a matter of days, but it left barely any impression behind. It was missing a certain something? Just something about this book did not connect with me. The in depth exploration of the gods and how they affect the world of chalion makes it welll worth reading however its not going to become a favourite any time soon. I have since found that this is part of a series and I’m not sure I’ll be checking out the next books. :/