First, I can’t believe this book was written almost 40 years ago!
Second, I can’t believe I haven’t bothered to read it up until now.
Third, it is worth all the hype.
Finally, a message to my dear Louis –
Louis, Louis, Louis…you are not a tortured soul…you’re just a big fat whiner…..get over yourself man…..
Bwhahahahahahahahaha
Brilliant book. Amazing really….
Until next time…
Urania xx
Buy it now Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
Not only did I love the writing style of Mohsin Hamid, I absolutely loved this story. Yes, I even loved the ending that I just KNOW many people will absolutely abhor.
I won’t do a long review on this book. I wouldn’t want my political opinions to effect how you go into reading this book. I wouldn’t want them to effect how you feel about this book.
I will only say, with all the distrust and bias towards Muslims this day and age post 911, people seem to forget that they are, in fact, individuals. They are not an idea, a symbol, or some inanimate objects. I think that society in general has taken them as just that. Inanimate objects or like a small child that has no idea what others are saying right in front of them.
That, no matter what your views are, is heartbreaking. It is also widening the chasm of ignorance that is the base root of so many problems.
The ending of this novel just confirms this.
So read it…and then tell me….what do you believe really happened at the end? What facts do you have to support that belief?
Brilliant book….
Until next time…
Urania xx
Buy it now The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Parts of this I really loved…I loved how “English” it was….however, overall I couldn’t wait for it to end…and at the end I was reminded why I don’t really enjoy contact with people very much….I much prefer the company of my tarantulas and solitude….this book and the characters in are exactly why…
People just annoy me. If I spend too much time with them, I get, not only annoyed, but highly agitated. I just want them to leave.
That’s how this book was. By the end of it, I was just glad I no longer had to spend any more time with these people.
As funny as it is, this was still my favourite quote in the book…I can’t help it….
The whole plan’s so high on the cheese factor it’s practically Stilton.
bwhahahahaha….now that was brilliant….
Until next time…
Urania xx
Buy it now White Teeth by Zadie Smith
I really enjoyed parts of this novel. Other parts kinda bored me. Here we have a young 17-year-old man who joins the Roman army right before an invasion of England. Because of his past (that we do not know about) he is placed second in command under his commander Marco.
My main complaint about the book is that is seems to just go from no relationship between Marco and Cato and then too much more. For me that would have been the best part of the book. Seeing that relationship grow. Watching Cato help Marco learning to read. Watching Marco build up the self-confidence in the boy. We only saw minor glimpses of that happening.
It was obvious to me who the spy was. From the very first mention of their name. I also kind of resent not being told who Cato really is. His history. It will obviously come about and we will eventually know, but I am disappointed that the author didn’t expect anyone to actually ask Cato who his father is…especially when it became apparent that the leaders wife knew him by sight. Obviously someone would have questioned him about his father since it placed him in a position of authority above me twice his age and all the whilst he had no training.
Finally, this book really shone when Cato was at the forefront in battle. When he placed himself in danger to save others without a thought of his own safety. When he would scream a battle cry and not even know where it came from. At times he was very childish, but when he was a man, he was a man to be feared and admired.
I just wish we had seen more of the same from Marco. As it stands in the ending of this novel, he is a very flat character.
I’m not sure if I shall continue this series or not….yes, I want to find out more about Cato, but sadly, I’m just not sure if I’m really willing to invest the time to find out those answers
Until next time…
Urania xx
Buy it now Under the Eagle (Eagle, #1) by Simon Scarrow
** spoiler alert ** Oh dear…sorry….but oh dear….it’s time to admit that I don’t hate “chick lit”…okay maybe I hate that term…but I actually do enjoy a light-hearted romantic romp around now and again…
However, this wasn’t the book for me…
I suppose some people might have issues with how fast the romance progressed…ummm…not me…I met my husband and fell in love in four short days once on holiday…today, even on a bad day, I still love him more than I could ever express…more than I ever thought I could…
However, I just don’t think these two people belonged together. I just don’t think Sophie was ready for a relationship. At the end of the novel I still don’t think she was.
I kept trying to put myself in her shoes…and honestly, I can’t understand why she refused to trust Billy throughout the novel. He gave her no reason to distrust him…except for being the exact person he actually is…a famous, attractive movie star. He didn’t really even have much of a past of being a bad boy…sure he dated before Sophie, but he wasn’t portrayed as a dishonest person in those relationships…
Sophie’s only reason for distrust was her doubt of her own self worth…and that certainly wasn’t Billy’s fault as he spent the entire novel telling her how important she was to him.
I didn’t sense a lot of depth in Sophie or Billy either one. To be honest, they were both pretty boring to read about. The saving grace of this novel are two of the secondary characters. Sophie’s mum…who I actually disliked for the first half of the book, but came to appreciate…and of course, Molly….Molly was the best part of the book! However, once again, I felt like as great as these two secondary characters were, that there will still much more that could have been added to even them…
This was a fast and easy read…and don’t misunderstand, I did enjoy it. However, this is one HEA ending that I think would have been better to never have happened….sorry but true…
Until next time…
Urania xx
Buy it now Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher
Mixed reviews on this one. I will quickly say that it felt like borderline erotica that was poorly executed. I also think that at the start that the writing style was mimic of the writing style of “Memories of a Geisha”, but where in MoaG it felt authentic, in this novel it just felt amateurish and childish.
Also you had the main character that was obviously powerful in her own right, and at times, she seemed to know this, but most of the time she was still dogeza with the other girls. SHe plainly knew the workings of the culture as it was all she knew…She noted the powers that some of the girls had over the others and noted the powers that her “auntie” had…even though men were always in power at the end of the day…however, it still bothered me that she seemed so subservient to everyone, even though she, in her own right, was put into several positions of power by some of her patrons.
Many times I wanted to put this novel down and place it in my DNF column. There are many parts of the story I would have liked to seen handled differently.
However, at the end of the day, I wanted to see what happened at the end of the story. At the end of the day I think there was some great potential here to make a mediocre novel into something that was very good. Yes it fell short, but I spent a great deal of time imagining and thinking about this novel when I wasn’t reading it. I just couldn’t manage to put it aside and felt compelled to finish it. I didn’t want to walk away and leave it undone. That in itself is something. I have to give credit where credit is due. No it wasn’t written as I wished it had, some parts of it I found silly even, but despite all of that, I had to finish it and I am glad that I did.
Not my best read of the year, but certainly not my worst either…
Until next time…
Urania xx
Review copy provided by Netgalley for an honest review
Buy your copy here Geisha With Green Eyes by India Millar
(Titled The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells in the UK) ** spoiler alert ** I have to say that I read this book quickly. I really felt compelled to finish it to the end. I had to see how it ended.
Having said that, well….that’s all I can really say…I found the writing style not only distracting, but also confusing. I found many parts of the novel repetitive. I found the children to be the only mature characters in the novel. I understood their confusion. I understood their emotions and feelings going back and forth. The adults however…I just couldn’t relate to. Their constant going back and forth. Their seeming ability to let 6 years go by and every one of them thinking things could/would go back to how it was before.
How does one expect us to feel sorry for the one that left, when she only came back for the reasons she did…I might not agree with her leaving…or why she left…but I could try to relate and understand it somehow…but let’s face it, if she wasn’t facing a life changing situation, she would still be off doing whatever it is that she did the previous 6 years…
The father…don’t even get me started on him. I understand not being perfect. I understand being confused…but he just took it to another level, didn’t he?
The “otherworldliness” stuff…again…I just don’t get it…sure, I understand that the author might have felt she was adding to the story and trying to stick in clever bits of symbolism, but seriously? It just added to the confusion and the not connecting to the story…as did all the strange “prominent but not prominent” twitter cast.
Finally, the different POVs….I don’t mind stories told in different POVs…but when the character in the chapter refers to themselves in 3rd person…it just does my head in…I’ve never before read anything like that…it’s almost like the characters decided to play both character and a narrator and that they couldn’t even keep their roles straight and kept getting confused and that’s why they slipped into 3rd person narratives from time to time…
Honestly, I’m not trying to rip this book to shreds. It was an interesting storyline. People do walk out of their lives. Sometimes they decide to come back. Often for the exact reasons described in this novel. However, I just don’t think many of them come back and expect to pick up exactly where they left off…they come back hoping to mend fences and make amends….not to step right back into the life they walked away from..as if nothing happened….as if they hadn’t been heard from in 6 years…as if time froze and did not move one once they left…and certainly, not one, but several adults expecting that to happen for various different reasons…
When it’s all said and done, am I glad I read this book? Yes. Was I in a hurry to finish so I could see what happened? Yes. Did I SOOOOO wish it was written differently? Hell yes…
Until next time…
Urania xx
Review copy provided by Netgalley for an honest review
Oh dear…I hate to give a review for a book I didn’t like much by an author that everyone seems to love. Especially if it’s a genre that I’ve made clear isn’t my favourite.
As I’ve wanted to read more books from this genre lately I have been asking myself more and more why it’s not a genre that I absolutely love.
This book is why! I’ve read some exceptional books that were classified “chick lit”. I’ve read some that make my heart swell…some that have made me laugh out loud…and some that have given me so many “feels” that I can’t help but to always seek out that next one that makes me feel all those emotions.
This book wasn’t awful. But I just had issues with the characters.
Why was the main character so stressed out from a job that she proclaimed meant so much to her, that she was so passionate about, but then was willing to just walk away for several months. I understand stress…I do! I understand needing a break…I do! However, this just seemed like it was over dramatic, especially since a few weeks later it was once again the best job in the universe with no issues at all…what was the real story going on there?
Second, I can’t stand where a character just falls for someone they don’t know…I mean, she didn’t even seem to find him that attractive when she first saw him…then suddenly after talking to her mate, she couldn’t stop thinking of him…then after one day she’s willing to do all sorts of things with him…
TBH, when we first heard of the *love interest* in this novel the description was so non-descriptive I didn’t have a clue what he was like…I pictured him as older man who didn’t speak much and might not even speak the same language…
Again, I’m not trying to be horrible here…the book REALLY was okay…
I just need some type of foundation to build a HEA on and I don’t feel like I received that in this novel. Little Kate was wonderful…the teddy was wonderful…the elderly Maisie was equally wonderful…
But that’s it…the rest just weren’t…and there were bits that really bothered me…How in an interview and discussing a new job the main character kept referring to the elderly as “old people”. Here she is in an interview and they ask her if she’s ever worked with senior citizens and she goes on about “one old lady in particular”. I’m not really one for strict PC, but I just found it a bit off-putting for me. It bothered me. Two days later it STILL bothers me…That “old woman” was meant to be her friend…and there you have it…I just found Emily shallow and fickle. I found Alasdair stern, controlling and unforgiving…and I didn’t seem them as an item at all…
I certainly didn’t hate the book, but I can’t reconcile myself a fantastic, deep felt relationship between two people who I never saw any evidence of…so this book was a pass for me…
Until next time…
Urania xx
ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review
Buy your copy here A Summer at Sea by Katie Fforde
Another great book by Connolly. Again, the ending of this book left me with chills and excitement of things yet to come. I really really REALLY wish Connolly would stop tormenting us with hints of the daughters and what they are capable of. Ha! I’m sick and anxious over them…and a wee bit scared as well!
For those that haven’t read Connolly before, you don’t HAVE to read his prior books to enjoy his works…however, there is so much story and history in the previous works. You won’t get lost having not read the previous books, but you won’t understand all the good stuff either. The layers and layers of history and characters that Connolly has interwoven. Charlie Parker really inspired those around him. Not all of those inspirations are positive. Some of them are borderline worshiping. And all of them are relevant. Imagine these novels are going to a wonderful city…yes, you can enjoy the city no matter what, but only a true local knows all the ins and outs that the city can offer. Those places not found in the tourist attractions. The very same is true for Charlie Parker. You learn much from Parker himself, but so much can be gained by the people that surround him in life.
Finally, I have to say, these characters are getting so rich and so many that I am thinking about starting a Charlie Parker notebook…So many characters that show up from novel to novel and so much of their stories growing and expanding…even though I’ve read of them in the past, I still feel as if I am missing some stuff because I can’t remember them all in all the details.
Of course that might just be an excuse my mind is using to go back and reread all the books!
Please, go read some Charlie Parker books…you won’t be disappointed…he’s really turning out to be a long time favourite of mine!
Until next time…
Urania
ARC provided by netgalley for an honest review
Buy it now A Time of Torment by John Connolly
Okay, so maybe chasing tigers doesn’t make this a great read…maybe some of it was a bit far-fetched as well…however, I don’t give a rat’s arse…this is the Sandford I love…characters going back and forth with sarcasm and wit that makes you feel like you’re right there in the same room with them.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to Flowers now that Davenport has moved on and isn’t his boss any longer…reading this novel made me realise that it doesn’t even matter any longer…
Flowers is no longer a spin-off from The Prey Series…Virgil isn’t simply a protégé of Lucas Davenport’s. He’s all grown up now and is his own self.
I’ve often marveled at how Sandford has taken Davenport and shaped him into someone who is still relevant despite his aging years and his greying temples…
But now I am seeing the exact same with Flowers. I used to be amused by Flowers, but didn’t really have any real respect for him. I found him a bit too free-spirited to take seriously….but he’s really grown on me…I like the serious Flowers I see now…yes, he still maintains that free spirit bobble headed boy, but there’s no doubt that his spirit is laced with steel. His experiences have hardened him and we see more and more of that…but that hardening hasn’t changed who he is…only how he handles the situations he’s found himself in….
I think there is a lot more to Flowers that we’ll see in the future and that’s why this is still a series that I am still excited about!
Until next time…
Urania xx
ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review
Buy it now Escape Clause (Virgil Flowers, #9) by John Sandford
Random Book Muses 