This was to be posted waaay earlier but I got another temporary blog and posted it there (??), but now as usual - I've changed my mind.
The first of january I started the yearly reading challenge on goodreads where I promised myself that I would read 30 books this year, So you know, I thought I'd better get going! This month I finished three in total. I read A Brave New World for english class so I can't be bothered to review it here (... I didn't find it mind blowing either) but here are the other two:
The Secret History, Donna TarttNow Tartt is not the biggest short story writer, as her other famous book the Goldfinch is close to 800 pages. This one 500 something, so unfurtonaltely I was too lazy to mark quotes. Anyway, I didn't really know what I expected from this book since the description didn't really say much. To be honest, on that many pages and based on people's reviews I suspected a bit more of a twisted history than what I felt it ended up as. That's my main problem with this book, it feels like it could've been a few hundred pages shorter, but then again this is a book about pretentious teenagers studying greek. A developed and outstretched language is perhaps just a compliment to the story setting the right mood.
So, when I now will try to explain the plot for you, keep in mind that it doesn't really say much. But it is; it's the kind of book where things happen in a sort of chain reaction, and I can't really spoil the outbreaking event of it all. But this is how it goes: Richard is in his early twenties when he gets a scolarship to Hampden college in New England. There, he gets in contact with a group of mysterious students who only study greek in an almost sect-like manner with their techer Julian as the leader. Nevertheless, Richard gets thrown in to their world influenced by ancient literature and once as he gets intregued with them, secrets are revealed and all of a sudden he realises that it's too late to turn back to his former life. (*dun Dun DUN*).
What I like most about this book, is how fixed you get to the characters - and It's not descriptive in the terms of environment and apperance of the characters; rather the thoughts and other psychological aspects of everything surrounding Richard. Nothing makes sense to him, the members of the group don't make sense, and the reader gets to follow him trying to investigate these originals. Or maybe Tartt does describe the visual as well, but it's not something you notice, everything mentioned with looks has a deeper meaning. She doesn't paint pictures only for the purpose of the reader's visuals. Everything is very psychological and it is essientially a very interesting book considering the different characteristics of the students. Unfortunately for me though, I feel like the books is too long, perhaps a bit overly ambitious? There was a time when I just wanted to continue to read in order to find out what was going to happen next, but that tension arose after I had read half the book.
★★★☆☆
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Rachel Cohn & David LevithanNick and Norah, two newly-single (according to me) extremely cool teenagers meet at a club after Nick's gig with his queer punk band somewhere in downtown Manhattan. When Nick spots his ex-girlfriend approaching he asks Norah, whom he had kind of checked out earlier, to be his girlfriend just for a few minutes it becomes the start of a night so eventful and full of up and downs and confusion that I might as well could have been a year. The chapters are going back and forward from the two's perspective, where Cohn writes Norah's part and vice versa (like this author couple usually do, in other words). It's a book which you can easily finish in an hour, especially since the plot is easy to follow as well.
No, I won't lie - this book IS cheesy at times and it does have segments which are unrealistically good, I mean just the fact that Nick and Norah's first conversation starts the classic phrase "could-you-be-my-girlfriend-for-five-minutes-while-my-ex-walks-by" is a bit of a cliché. But then I have to admit that (with the risk of sounding incredible cheesy myself) there have been moments in my life which felt too good to be true or it just felt like a movie, so I'm just going to go ahead and say ignore that because this is NOT completely a stereotypical book about teenagers falling in love. The story is basically all about how confused and indecisive they are over their feelings towards each other. How they can't control nor understand why they act like they do or say what they say, which also adds humor. Let me demostrate:
This line cracked me up. An actual book, text on paper, made me crack up. Because I could say something like this to someone I'm interested in. I'm always annoyed when crushing people are so confident in what they do in books and movies. Ok, maybe some people truly are confident when they're around a person they like (GO YOU!) but I'm most certainly not. Starting a conversation about someone's dick is similar to what I'd do. And to be honest, conversations like these are much more cute then some soapy "you have boootifol eyezzzzzzz". What I'm trying to get at is that it's realistically written, not beautified. I like that the conversations are not overly-pretentious either, as "fucking" casually appears several times in every chapter (I've seen people criticise this, but I personally never use that word when I'm frustrated, I use it more casually, just like they do) .And let's be honest - what kind of book has a chapter which ends with the frase: "The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies."????
This is the second book I've read by Cohn and Levithan, as I read Dash and Lily's Book of Dares last summer. Out of the two, I prefer this one as it feels a bit more mature and less sugar-coated. This pair of authors is defiantly something worth checking out though If you sometimes feel like reading stories about teenage people fallling in love yet can't stand Nicholas Sparks (sorry not sorry). I'm going to sound like such a grandpa now but the teenagers feel contemporary in a sense, and they bring up, though not prominently, feminism, political issues and the two books I've read both have LBQT people in them in without making it genralised or stereotypical (but!!! it's not perfect in this sense, it's not completely politically correct but then again - I'd rather read this then other books in the same genre).
★★★★☆
It was very cold, cold and snowy so I spent many days up north skiing. My pale face gave me a ghost-like appereance but at least the moon was pretty.
danced to techno / did not dance to wax witches
spent an awful lot of time at the library, and went to see a play but looked up in the ceiling instead.
