Urania

Review: First Comes Love by Emily Griffin

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first-comes-loveI’ve read many Emily Giffin books in my time…This was nothing like any of the previous books that I’ve read by her. If you’re looking for some silly lighthearted reading, this isn’t the book I would recommend to you.

I have to admit, I was looking for silly and lighthearted when I picked up this novel…so was a bit disappointed.

This is a hard book to review. Not just because it was different from I expected. I just found it extremely hard to get into. At about 20% I was wishing I hadn’t even started it. I can’t say there was much of anything I was enjoying. I didn’t like the characters. More so, I hated the way they treated one another.

At about 40% – 50% things turned around and I didn’t want to put the book down. However, I can’t stress this enough, I absolutely HATED one of the characters, and as much as I tried to make allowances for her behaviour, I simply could not set my dislike aside. Even as I finished the last page, I still was flabbergasted at an adult acting like she did.

I’m not sure if Griffin meant for me to feel that the character that was presented as the most unsettled and immature, in my opinion, turned out to be more mature than the majority of the others, including the one that was settled, smart, and level-headed. Perhaps it should be noted at this point that everyone that leads a *perfect* life might, in fact, be hiding just how messed up their life really is…and those that seem scattered, and unsettled, might in fact be solid, steady, and perfectly okay.

Yes, the second half of the book is really engaging and you’re invested in the characters, and was well worth the time of the reader…however, I don’t think it should take half a book for things to start being interesting.

The book is really full of some adults that over the process of 15 years seem to revert to selfish children. I don’t feel any of those things ultimately changed at the end of the novel…I wouldn’t want those type of people surrounding me in real life…and sadly, at the end of the day, I didn’t want them surrounding me in my literary life either…

Until next time…
Urania xx

ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now First Comes Love by Emily Griffin

Review: A Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell

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pale-horsemanThis series is just breathtaking. Seriously, I kid you naught, it left me breathless more than once. I won’t say that Cornwell’s battle scenes are g rated, but I have read much more graphic…however Cornwell does have me having to slow myself down, alternately, afraid of what I am about to read, whilst at the same time trying to rush ahead to see what happens next. At one point in the novel, I think I actually said, “HOLY SHIT” in the middle of the night.

But before you wander off, thinking this isn’t the story for me because you hate that type of thing, let me remind you that this isn’t just about battles. In fact, there are only a few that take place in this novel. This is a novel about a young warrior named Uhtred. Northerner nobleman by birth, English by circumstance, Dane by force, Pagan by choice, but warrior at heart.

One has to be reminded time and time again that Uhtred is only a young man in this, the second novel, of the Saxon Stories. He is still battling with his choices, his conscious, his loyalties, his religion and most definitely with his warrior soul.

Watching Uhtred make his journey into adulthood and trying to weave his way through all that he faces, be it strategical, personal, or political, is in of itself, well worth the time it takes to read this series. You will be hard pressed to find someone who inspires or moves you as much as Uhtred does.

More than that though, this is an amazing retelling of history through fiction. I find myself searching for Alfred the Great and reading more about these battles and the locations. Of the defeats and the obsession of religion. Of how he came to be…and of how he came not to be..This is a story that inspires one to learn more about what came before.

I have always found England fascinating. From time to time, I’ve asked people, here in England, how does it feel to know that you walk where kings and knights have walked? On the very same ground. Where legends were born and countries were made? They often look at me like I am either daft or a lunatic. Here, however, is the proof. The very same places that I see around me are here, mentioned in this novel. The chalk grounds I see are where blood was spilled in the wars between the Saxons and the Danes.

That is what great story telling is about. As I went to sleep each night reading this novel, I awoke, not in the 21st century, but in the 9th. In England as it must have been then, the damp, the sound of battle cries in my head, the smell of fires, the bitter cold, and the knowledge that we fight for a cause…and her name is England…

Until next time…

Urania xx

Buy it now A Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell

Review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

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fine-balanceHow does one even attempt to review such a scopious novel? Seriously…I think I need to weep, but there’s just nothing left inside of me at the moment. Perhaps a bit of happiness, hope, faith restored…but only a tiny bit…and perhaps there is some despair, hatred, anger, even dubiosity….or maybe they all just cancel one another out and that is why I feel so much…nothingness…I want to be all of these things…I want to have all of these emotions…and I want to make sense of it all…but I just can’t…

Who can make sense of destiny? Who can think they know better than fate?

“..my life would have been so different today. But our destinies are engraved on our foreheads at birth.”

I think this novel has left me in shock…it gives so much hope in so many places, but just as real life often does, it snatches it all away in a blink of an eye. You want to be angry, but how can you? What gives you that right when the characters themselves handle their fate with so much grace and acceptance. How can you even attempt to place blame, when they themselves do not…How can you weep for them, when they do not weep for themselves?

As I sit here writing this review, I am not ashamed to say that as I sit here, trying to make sense of it all, that my numbness has turned to me openly weeping at this book’s ending…Nor am I ashamed to admit I do not know who I weep for the most…it could be any single one of these characters..they have all touched me in some way….or maybe I weep for myself…or all of humanity together…

Read this book…

Until next time…

Urania xx

Buy it now A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Review and a Revisit: This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

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how-it-alwaysOur very own Thalia reviewed this novel a few weeks ago, but it’s so important I wanted to do another review in hopes that you will pick up this fantastic novel…Plus, I REALLY wanted to review it too! I loved it so much!

I loved this novel. I couldn’t stop thinking about this novel for days on end. I wish so much that every family in the world was as amazing as this family. I wish that every child that felt different had a Nan that went out of their way to make them feel normal. I wish all schools were led with forward thinking leaders that had the best interest of the children in mind.

The truth is, I personally feel, that it’s a vast minority that are like this.

I think I’m pretty open-minded. Or at least I try to be. I feel as if I understand what some people must feel. Reading this novel…well, how naive was I? This book made me see some things from a totally different angle. Yes, it’s one thing to hear an adult say that they always felt different…it’s another thing to actually see a young child going through something so difficult.

This book is so important.

Again, the parents of this novel did an amazing job! I loved them so very much. The siblings, again, A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!! I know parents and families like this DO exist.

However, if I had one complaint about this novel, it’s that the parents did too great of a job. That the siblings were too amazing. That the school leaders were too brilliant. That the fellow students were too perfect.

I don’t know. That sounds horrible. I so loved Claude and Poppy. THEY WERE VERY REAL TO ME…they broke my heart over and over again, and they gave me such joy as well. I want the happiness. I don’t want them to be hurt. I understand they were hurt. However, as in real life, much of the hurt we feel as preteens/teens is in our mind. No, that doesn’t make it less real. It’s still a valid hurt. It’s still a real hurt. I’m just saying that it wasn’t as bad in the school for Claude and Poppy as they imagined it to be. The peer group in the school DID accept them.

I don’t think the real world is like that. I think it’s just as bad as Claude/Poppy imagined it to be…no…I think it’s much worse. I don’t want that to be true…but I am afraid it might be.

That saddens me to say that maybe, for me…and families that are going through this…well…maybe the book was a small disappointment in that regards. It might be hard for the Poppy’s in the real world to relate to such perfect families and friends, when their own family and friends are very different.

I don’t want that to be true…I want the Poppy’s of the world to be free to be themselves. I want them all to be happy at the end.

I don’t know how to reconcile this desire with the reality of so much of the world…

Until next time…

Urania xx

ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Review: Always by Sarah Jio

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alwaysI enjoyed this book…but it just wasn’t a great book for me. It felt a bit flat…More like an outline for a great book, but missing all the real meat of the story.

At the end of the day though I have to hand it to Jio. So often in love triangles, the author always turns around and tries to make one of the characters into some sort of villain or undesirable person to make it easier for the reader to accept the choices made. Jio didn’t do that. She kept it real. I really appreciate that. I wish more authors did so. Life isn’t always in black and white with clear-cut choices…so why should books be?

This book also made me miss Seattle a wee bit…okay….more than a wee bit…I knew all of the places mentioned.

I wish I had loved this book more. It was a great story and yes, I found it interesting. It was also a very quick read for me. I couldn’t wait to see what happened so I had a hard time putting it down. That happens less and less these days, so again, I give even more props to Jio.

I don’t wish to discourage anyone from reading this book. Please do pick it up and give it a try. It is a good book….but it did feel a bit like a lifetime made for TV movie.

Until next time…

Urania xx

ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now Always by Sarah Jio

Review: A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

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winter*Note of interest* The kindle edition of this novel has the acknowledgements in the front of the novel. Those acknowledgements gave away a huge part of this novel. If you’re at all familiar with the synopsis, then it probably won’t give anything away for you…However, I hate to know anything other than the title of a novel before reading it, so I was a wee bit peeved at this oversight of the formatters. The DTB copy that I own has the acknowledgments at the end…WHERE THEY BELONG!!!

This novel…I loved it. I was so fascinated by it that I found myself trying to find out more about PG himself…and of how this story was inspired/loosely based upon his grandfather. Knowing these things…and well…because of the book itself, Harry Cale haunted me.

Other reviewers say PG’s writing is beautiful. I’m sorry…I didn’t see his writing as lyrical or beautiful. If you happen to read this review, Mr Gale, no offense meant! I promise! However, I found Harry Cale beautiful. I could hear the silence of his solitude. My ears were deafened by it. I believe Harry will haunt me for a very long time. I so much want to sit beside him. I want him to know how much I admire his strength and his sense of honor. I want him to know that he is not alone.

Yes, this story is interesting. It’s opened up conversations with me and other people. I just had to tell others about this book. It’s made me think. To try to imagine what society must have been like not so long ago. It has made me sad. It has made me admire. It has made me ponder what all of this meant to PG, the author. Has it shaped the man he was…or shaped the man he is…or is it shaping the man he hopes to become? I spent only several hours reading this novel…but I have spent countless hours thinking about it….

Yes, again, the story itself is wonderful. It’s interesting. No, I’m not going to tell you what the novel is all about…you should know by now that’s not how I do reviews! What I will tell you is that, no matter how wonderful and interesting the story is/was…Harry Cale is even more interesting and wonderful…

I’m telling you…he is going to haunt me for a very long time…

Until next time…

Urania xx

Buy it now A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

Review: Night School by Lee Child

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night-schoolQuickly…This Reacher book has lots of players in it. At times, I thought maybe a few too many. But Child has made it work. Many times in the past when Reacher is part of a team, it ends up being a book I am not a big fan of, however, I really enjoyed this book.

I was a bit disturbed by the ending. I didn’t dislike it, but it bothers me. The bit of fact layered in with the fiction has me unsettled. It’s gave me too much to think about really. One more reason to stay up late at night worrying about things I can’t possibly change. The choice that Reacher makes at the end….well…uffta….I won’t go into that…again, so many implications…

Finally, I need to say, I’ve been reading Reacher from the start. Nearly 20 years I’ve been waiting month after month, year after year, for new installments. A few of the later ones have…well…they haven’t exactly lived up to my high expectations.

When I started reading this one, at one point, I was like, “wow, this is like a modern-day marriage” I have felt like just walking away recently from Reacher. I’ve stayed out of loyalty to the past. At one point, I saw a glimpse of the man I used to love so much.

I feel like I’ve known all of Reacher’s habits, bad and good, that I’ve taken them for granted….and perhaps even been a bit annoyed with them.

Isn’t this what happens in long-term (hey!!! ALMOST 20 YEARS!!!! REMEMBER???) People change…they get bored…I’ve changed…and Reacher hasn’t…but that’s my side of the story. There are always two sides. Reacher has changed as well. And we’ve both remained the same…

So I really enjoyed this book…but now I question everything. Did I hate some of the others because I was in a dull spot in our relationship? Did I love this one because I’ve missed our relationship?

Yea, I know…I’ve went way off base here and tangents galore…but bottom line is, I’m glad I’ve stuck with Reacher…and I don’t plan on bailing ship anytime soon…I’m in it for the long run…even if sometimes I get bored…and annoyed…and I question his motives…I trust at the end of the day, Reacher is Reacher and just doing the things he does to provide his sort of justice…

Until next time…

Urania xx

Buy it now Night School by Lee Child

Review: Inherit the Bones by Emily Littlejohn

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bones
** spoiler alert ** Awww man….this could have been a solid 4 star read for me. Other parts make it a very wobbly 2 star read for me. I’m actually a bit angry as well as disappointed. I don’t know how else to rate it except a 3 star…and if I am being honest, the parts that made it a poor read for me rub me so much that I think the 3 stars is being very generous. I’m sorry to the author for having said that, but I always try to be completely honest in my reviews regardless of how bad they might be. Up until that parts that really bothered me, I thought this was an engaging and very well written novel.

I will just quickly go over the things I really found…okay….errrr….stupid…not just stupid but unbelievably stupid…there are only a couple of them really…

**SPOILERS WITHOUT SPOILERS**

I just don’t believe any police officer would have someone break into their homes and not report it for several days. Especially if they felt it might be tied to an ongoing murder investigation. I don’t buy it and no matter how many people wish to tell me they believe it, I don’t. especially considering other things about this officer (to mention those things would be giving too much away)…

I also don’t believe that not one but TWO police officers know the name of a murderer and withhold that information from their commander. I don’t believe that they would want to wait until they had the “full story” to share what they’ve uncovered. Part of police work is meant to include discussing ongoing cases with other officers and your commander, especially when he is asking you point blank…it’s not to hide and withhold evidence so you can come in at the end and have it all solved in a neat package all by yourself.

Lastly, the ending…seriously? I’m not upset with bit players at the end and the whodunit or even the whys (okay, it was all a bit too neat, but I could have lived with that) but I could almost see the scene in the kitchen played out in my mind in some two-bit small town production where the actors are meant to overact and to over exaggerate everything almost in an attempt to make fun of the whole thing. Only this wasn’t meant to be bad acting or over exaggerating…but it so was…I could almost see someone falling to the floor in a 5 minute long dying scene that the audience can’t help but to laugh at…and then the other players say, “oh well, that’s all sorted. Time to go home.” and just pack up and head offstage left…

yes, to me, it really was that bad!

Why why why?

Until next time…

Urania xx

ARC provided by the publisher and Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now Inherit the Bones by Emily Littlejohn

Review: A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell, #2) by Deanna Raybourn

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30008834I didn’t just fall in love with this novel like I did the first in the series. However, after finishing it, I think I do appreciate this one much more.

In Veronica we now see someone that has grown a bit since we last saw her. She isn’t nearly as annoying as she was in the first book. She seems to no longer feel the need to let everyone else she knows everything…yes, she still believes she’s more clever than most, but she isn’t determined to prove it in this novel.

Stoker…damn, he was so attractive to me in the first novel…he was no less in this one.

This mystery wasn’t as engaging as the last one was (for me). There also is much less *tension* between Veronica and Stoker. However, what Raybourn has managed to do is simply amazing.

What do I mean by this? Veronica and Stoker are both very independent people. Often authors present us with what they believe independent people, but at the same time, they are actually very dependent. They go out of their way to prove to their independence when all they really want to do is be dependent. It’s what I find most annoying about romantic novels. Women or men that are suppose to be so strong and then overnight become weak and hopeless waiting on someone to rescue them. I’m not trying to be mean here…I’m just giving my viewpoint…

But this? Veronica and Stoker are fast friends and best mates, but they are still independent thinkers. I don’t see that changing. Somehow Raybourn has managed to keep the characters true to themselves. Veronica and Stoker are a united front against the world. We all know that eventually they will be together (YES YES YES) however, I don’t believe they will ever fit in with society’s norm to do so. I don’t believe they will ever find it necessary to become dependent on each other…yes, of course they will depend on each other…they do that now…but you’ll never find one sniveling and hiding in the corner and acting the fool to win the other’s love…they won’t need to…they truly are secure in their own identity…

I know this is probably my worst review EVER!!! But I place all the blame on just how much I love what Raybourn has created in these two characters. Two people that have very checkered pasts, two people that aren’t holding themselves pure and chaste for the perfect love, two people that are self confident enough to not try to manipulate (although they both have no problem doing so to get to the truth of the matter in their investigations) each other…and yet they trust each other 100% and don’t feel a need to give one iota of a care to what anyone else thinks about their relationship. This novel might not be the best…this mystery might not be the best…but this relationship is so refreshing to me that I am just at a loss of words…

Until next time…
Urania xx

ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn

Review: The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

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69136Wow. John Connolly sure knows how to rewrite fairy-tales! Imagine having dozens of fairy-tales rewritten and woven together to create one magical saga for one lonely young boy. We have 12-year-old David, living in London during the war, who mourning the death of his mum, dives into a new world when he hears his mother calling his name. He soon runs into the “crooked man” and with the help of many others in this imagined land, he manages to survive, werewolves, trolls, witches and much more to help save the kingdom that they reside in. David, soon finds out that the promises that the crooked man makes might not be sincere and the little man has his own motives for trying to help David along the way.

There must be a dozen or more fairy-tales wrapped into this wonderful tale. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Connolly, but hear me now…this really blew me away and I have a newfound respect for this writer! Wow….what an imagination. One might say not, as some of the original fairy-tales have been around for centuries, however, how he changed just enough to make it new, and outrageous, yet still a bit scary and then managed to weave them all together into one story….brilliance! I absolutely loved this one! Well done, Connolly!

Until next time…
Urania xx

Buy it now The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly