Lau

Challenge: Read a book with a color in the title

I've become completly biased when it comes to Stephen King but I can say without a doubt that this is one of the best books I've ever read.

King keeps surprising me with his ability to take on different topics and being able to write beautiful stories. I still can't believe that he's only known as a horror writer when he's able to produce much more than simple jump scares.

I don't think I can say much about it other than it was beautiful and tragic.

I think this is one of the worst reviews I've written but I simply have no words to describe this book. Just read it.

Challenge: Read a book based on or turned into a TV show

I was looking forward to reading this since it was the very first Sherlock Holmes story. I'm thinking of re-reading The Hound…, which I didn't like much, because I enjoyed quite a lot both The Adventures… and this book.

Moffat ends his introduction with "We love sweet reason and good friendships" and I have to say it's a great way to summarize how I feel about Sherlock Holmes stories. I'm drawn to Sherlock/Watson dynamics and loved to see how they were so different but worked so well together.

Even though I've read (and also saw it in the different adaptations) that Sherlock is so cruel and rude, he didn't come across like that IN THIS NOVEL to me at all. He was very sarcastic and full of himself but to me, he wasn't being a douche to anyone.

I have to say that I was very surprised by the second part of the novel. Although I was quite confused at first, I thought it was a completely new way to tell the culprit's story and I like it.

Challenge: Read a book you started but never finished

                  Read a book that was originally written in a different language

This book is not for me, definitely. I tried several times to read it in the past and could not get into to so I would leave it and never finish it.

This time was no different. I forced myself to finish it because of the book challenge and I will NEVER do that again. I suffered every time I read some passages, I dreaded the moment I had to pick it up and I got frustrated that not finishing this was slowing my reading.

PURE PERFECTION.

Wesley will forever be my favourite character. Even though I find him to be quite a transparent character, it was really interesting to read from his POV.

He's so sweet and cheeky, I just love being able to read things from this character.

And let me put this over here


(I know, I know he's not a blonde but I can't picture him as anything but a dark-haired Cary Elwes)

Challenge: Read a book from an author you love that you haven't read yet

I had really high hopes for this book and I’m happy they were met. Victoria Schwab is able to create interesting and believable characters. I quite enjoy seeing Mac and Wesley in a different environment and seeing how they both react to it.

I still have problems with love triangles. In this book I was especially annoyed with it because of the people involved in the triangle. I saw no point of having it and it made me dread the moment of the confrontation.

Also, I wasn’t a big fan of the flashbacks this time around but I could see their purpose so I’m not going to hold it against the book.

All in all, The Unbound was a great sequel. To be honest, I’m dreading the release of the third book just because I can imagine what problems might arise with the characters and I just don’t want them to stay like this FOREVERRRR.

Challenge: Read a book that came out the year you were born
                  Read a graphic novel

I really liked how this comic explored The Joker’s past. Using flashbacks of what happened to him before his accident, the author drew parallelism with both Batman’s past and origins and Gordon’s present nightmare. Also, I liked that idea that even The Joker himself isn’t sure of what his origins were.

I loved the idea that tragedy can break even the most honest man and that everyone is capable of going as mad as the villains.

The other aspect I liked was that the ending didn’t actually give the reader a certain answer as to what was the outcome of the encounter between Batman and The Joker. Knowing Batman, one can say that there's only one possibilty but the general tone of the comic, dark and twisted, can lead us to think otherwise.

I’m sad to read that the author himself doesn’t find this to be an interesting read because I enjoyed it a lot.

Challenge: Read a book a friend recommended

This is my third García Marquez book and I still can get into his writing. In this particular book, there are no divisions other than the indentation of the paragraphs, which made me feel overwhelmed with the amount of information I was getting.

Everyone in town had something to say about the death and we get flashbacks here and there. It was way too much confusing for me. The more confused I got, the less interested in the book I was.

The idea and the plot were interesting but the way it was executed didn’t go well with me.

The First Doctor is not my favourite at all (granted, I haven't watched all his episodes yet but still, I don't like him) and this story didn't change that.

The plot was OK, I didn't care for the references to other doctors or the characters. Well, I did care for one, Aldridge. He seemed really interesting and I actually liked his interactions with the First Doctor.

I thought the Epilogue was a nice touch, though.

This is the first book of the year reading challenge, which is a mix between Kat's TBR-Challenge and PopSugar's reading challenge.

(I didn't have a jar so I put it in an old little tin box)

For this month, I had to read a book I was supposed to read in school/uni but didn't. I generally read all the books that I'm assigned at uni (because we don't get a lot) so I went for one of the optional books.

The premise of this book was interesting. Each chapter is a sort of short story following the painting Girl in Hyacinth Blue and how the different owners get it or lose it. The book starts at the "present" and with each chapter, it goes back until the moment Vermeer painted the picture.

As it usually happens with short stories, not every owner's story was engaging. I could connect with some of the owners but with others, the story seemed to drag. The language was quite accessible and the narrative covers several time periods so I could see why a teacher would pick this particular novel to study in class.

All in all, it was a good book with an interesting idea for a plot but it sometimes felt like a chore to read it.

I had decided not to do this but so many of you are that I thought I'd give at least a few of these a go. Right now, I'm shooting for 10...and we'll see where we go from there.

COULD.NOT.STOP.READING.

This book was amazing! I’ve read everywhere that the story was really messed up, that the characters were messed up, that once you start you can’t put it, blah-blah. There was so much hype around it that I just didn’t think the book was going to be as good. I’m so glad I was wrong. I was hooked since the beginning. The shared POVs were handled incredibly well and there were always mini-cliffhangers that made me want to continue reading.

As for the characters, I can’t say I liked any of them but, nevertheless, I still found their interactions and development in their stories really interesting to read.

I thought the idea of exploring a marriage from the inside (Nick and Amy’s) and comparing it with others (Nick’s parents’ and Amy’s parents’) was very engaging. Even though Nick and Amy’s situation were taken to an extreme, it’s not rare to see the problems they face in everyday life.

And THAT ENDING!!! The ending was wonderful. It left the story open for the readers to come up with whatever resolution they like. I like open endings when they are done right and this one was done in a marvelous way.

I’m extremely happy with how much Gone Girl lived up to my expectations.

I really enjoyed this one. The first ten pages had me laughing really hard but I thought the problems the main character faced were too cruel on Kinsella's part. I know they were made to make the readers laugh but I felt really bad for Lara, instead of finding it funny.

Luckily, the book picked up in the second half. I really liked the characters that were introduced as well as the "mystery" aspect.

I found Kinsella's style of writing to be very natural and fresh and I simply couldn't put the book down.

Twenties Girl is a lovely romantic novel which does follow the typical romance formula but was written in such an intertaining way that one can help but read on. I ighly recommend it.

I was expecting so much of this book and, honestly, I was quite disappointed. I thought the stories were going to be filled with cuteness and romance but in my opinion, the stories are quite average and instead of cuteness, they were filled with drama. Not one of the main characters in any of the stories had a backstory without some sort of problematic circumstance (a dead parent, a mean step-parent, friends that don’t understand them, etc).

Don’t get me wrong, the stories were OK but after a few stories with the same melodramatic background, I got bored. Stephanie Perkins’ story was perfect (there was a bit of drama but it wasn’t addressed as much as in the other ones and, of course, there was TONS of cuteness and perfection) and that was what made this book a 3.5 one instead of 3.

Along with Perkins’ story, I really enjoyed The Lady And The Fox by Kelly Link and Polaris Is Where You’ll Find Me by Jenny Han. Rainbow Rowell’s story fell flat for me.

All in all, it was a good anthology but not as good as I was expecting.

I'm not very impressed with this collection of short stories. There were a few that I liked but they were mostly just ok.
I didn't like that the introduction of the stories pretty much gave away the ending, which made some stories even less interesting to read.

I received a copy of this via NetGalley, for an honest review.

I quite enjoyed this book. The characters felt very real to me and, being a teacher as well, I felt identified with Laura a lot. Her struggles with teaching and class management were much greater than mine but I could see myself in her shoes.

I found the storytelling to be very unique and a bit confusing at times. The narration switches perspectives as well as format and timelines. Even though I had to put it down a few times, I enjoyed it.

I received a copy of this via NetGalley, for an honest review.

My expectations for this book were incredibly high. I loved the first book, especially the last bit where Herlock and Lupin met, and I was really looking forward to this one.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t blown away by it as I thought I would be. The first story wasn’t very entertaining to me. Herlock and Lupin’s interactions were amazing and I absolutely loved how cheeky Lupin was. That being said, I found the actual crime not interesting at all and both Herlock and Wilson were very dense. When he wasn’t talking to Lupin, Herlock acted just like the silly detectives that were trying to catch Lupin instead of a real match for the Thief.

The second story, on the other hand, was more interesting. Again, Herlock and Lupin’s showdown was wonderful and I loved how Lupin teased Herlock about their roles being switched.

Good but not as good as I expected