Members of this great book club,
I only read 1 book this month :((
this whole summer has been really bad. I'm behind on like 13 books for this year's challenge and i hate that I haven't been in the right head space to read but I finally finished a book after my final. It was Daughter of No Worlds by Carrissa Broadbent and it was great. The pacing was 10/10, the characters were 10/10 and it had such a nice plot she didn't waste time for the first 150 pages. As good as it was there were bad points like the sheer amount of inconsistency in the character's perspective on certain issues and it was more noticeable as it was in the first person pov. I also thought it was quite predictable like I saw everything from a mile away and given that it's a series I don't think that's a good thing. Will I be reading the next 2 books??? probably not but I did like this one. I'm hoping to read more poetry in the coming months so please recommend some, I'm going to start with Mahmoud Darwish and see if I like it. Happy Reading in August.
The Butterfly:
Another month gone by and two more books read
I read Circle of Stones by Duerk. It had really good ratings, but left me unimpressed overall.
I did enjoy The Ride of Her Life, a true story about a 60 year old woman who was given 2 years to live and decided to ride her horse from Maine to California(USA) after she lost the family farm. Showed the hospitality and kindness people are capable of. ❤
I've been seeing the ride of her life pop up in so many places. i might pick it up
Novel Perfect aka Sleeping pill
First of all no offence to all Judith McNaught fans (including self)
A few days ago I had read her Paradise n was impressed a lot by it, which made me go through her this novel, n guess what....I cud nt pass first 50 pages even. :(
This time there was only one reason.
Which was the same as the 2nd point from review of novel paradise, but to a degree of well, multi-multi-multifold.
( 2nd point from things that did not work for me in paradise was - Undue extended number of words allotted to areas like management meetings, while describing the setup viz stores, school, office decor.)
I literally had to ff many pages.
I cud not even wait for ML/FL's first kiss....It was so torturous to read a single extra line.
They are so right when they say, "anything excess is not good".
She really did excess this time while explaining the surroundings, people, their scenario/relationships, school, her students arghhh she explained in minute details even students's parents....u invariably tend to forget where were u n what was happening in the novel at present
I decided to drop the reading, n was just flipping the pages n caught my attention to one name....
And that was the last straw for me.
She brought Main Male character from her previous novel and that Hero was playing , what? A cameo?
How can u do such huge injustice with Matt Farrell from Paradise???
Still, i have not written her off, will wait for a while, read some other author, n will come back again for her another novel.
Because I had really really liked her Paradise.
(Oh God! Please forgive me if I am committing any sin here.)
Amen!!!
First of all no offence to all Judith McNaught fans (including self)aenoee:
As a fan, none taken :P Actually, I should thank you. I haven't thought of this book in years, and it is my favorite of her contemporary novels. I've reread it multiple times in the past but gave away my copy when I was moving away from print books. I just now put the ebook on hold at the library so I can do a nostalgic reread. Sadly, it is also over 700 pages, but I remember enough to know how to skip without missing the good parts.
Somehow I don't enjoy fast forwarding the pages.
Understandable as it's the first time you're reading it.
Any recommendations wud be welcomed?
Recs for more Judith McNaught? Have you tried her historicals? My first and favorite is Almost Heaven (over 500 pages), but I liked all the others I read. Her books are on the long side because she does go into detail, like you noted.
Another romance author I liked in the past was Jude Devereaux; I mostly read her historicals but my favorite of hers is a contemporary novel called Sweet Liar. It was originally published in the early 90s, so it'll probably feel quite dated now but I loved the story.
Phew, it's been a while since I posted here and since I found my way back to books.
This year I set my goal for reading/completing 16 books.
I started with a couple children/teen books from the series "The Three Investigators". It became a famous and popular series (with audio books) in Germany and generations like mine and older grew up with it and a lot of them still follow this series. The following are just a few of the ones I read.
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I picked up a book I started a while ago and finally completed it. It's Tom Felton's biography "Beyond the Wand" and it positively surprised me. I have to admit I hated his character Draco in the Harry Potter series because he was so mean. haha Tom Felton is the exact opposite though he was quite mischievous in his childhood and teenage years. xD In his book he shares funny and lovely anecdotes of his early career as a child actor and of the set filming the Harry Potter movies. A recommended read if you're into the movies or just want a glimpse behind the scenes of film making.
Another read was a romance novel. I just needed something sweet and fluffy and the book I spontaneously picked was the perfect one for that. It was funny, heartwarming and had enough bickering of the protagonists to root for them to finally end up together.
Sadly it seems there's no english translation for this book.
Last but not least I decided to give one of the new Disney Twisted Tales series a try.
It's re-telling the original Disney movies in books and as the name indicates with a twist. In my case it was the Disney movie "Frozen" and the twist is that Elsa and Anna have been separated after the incident where Elsa accidentally hurt Anna. Their memories get manipulated so they don't remember being sisters. Reading that in the synopsis sounded interesting but the execution was less exciting than I hoped it would be. A lot of scenes were very similar to the movie and left me disappointed, because it was a chance to actually create something different and in the end they failed in delivering a truly new perspective.
I couldn't find a english version of this book so I'm showing the german cover.
@ Lucian,
Halfway through "sweet liar"
U were right, when u said, " u wud find it a bit outdated".
The references they made especially with computers, happening stuff, in ones,
Few things I found quite odd, i wud share those in my review.
Since it's been almost 20 years since I last read Sweet Liar, I decided to try for a reread. And it's not holding up so far, unfortunately. I'm only past chapter 4 (about 15%) and I didn't remember the ML being so cringey and intrusive, kissing her the first time they met, entering her room with a key he claimed he didn't have, etc etc, and just generally being all up in her face. My younger self was really tripping, lol! I almost regret starting it (and hesitant to continue) because I feel like I'm ruining one of my favorite books :(
