Gerry Reads and Reviews...Badly #3

So…I’m going to start off with a little rant before I dive ahead into another book review. *Clears throat* here goes….

If you don’t read this blog that is ok. Now I know that is a bit of a funny thing to say as those who are reading these words are, in fact, reading this blog and so for me to say ‘if you don’t read this blog’ when you are actually reading this blog is a bit of an oxymoron. Still if you have stumbled upon this page, accidentally or otherwise, and are wanting to back out now then go for it. That is ok.

You don’t have to like all (or any) of my blog posts but please don’t feel you have to come out of your way to tell me that you don’t read my blog. I say this because this has happened to me twice this week. Twice! Tell me you do read my blog and that you like it and I will probably love you forever. Tell me you do read it but that there are things that aren’t your cup of tea or there are things that you think need changing and I will actually take constructive criticism on board. I guess I’m just not too sure what the point is of someone actively bringing it up in conversation that they don’t read my blog.

Um…good for you? Good for me? Good for the entire population of mankind? Don’t get me wrong I don’t care/ mind if you don’t read it or like it but I suppose I do mind if people want to make a point that they don’t, especially as I never asked or bought the damned thing up in conversation in the first place! I suppose I just get a little fascinated at what is really shite social intelligence levels.  

Oh well Ranty McRantFace over….on the plus side this weekend has mostly been sponsored by Nutella and someone at work said that they wished they had my wardrobe. And as this person dresses how I would dress if I actually put effort into my appearance I was very pleased!

On to the book review!

This book was finished in under a week, not only because it isn’t a particularly long book but it also happened to be a very good read.

The book is…

The blurb is….

New York, 1895. Sylvan Threadgill, a night soiler cleaning out the privies behind the tenement houses, finds an abandoned newborn baby in the muck. An orphan himself, Sylvan rescues the child, determined to find where she belongs.

Odile Church and her beautiful sister, Belle, were raised amid the applause and magical pageantry of The Church of Marvels, their mother’s spectacular Coney Island sideshow. But the Church has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in its ashes. Now Belle, the family’s star, has vanished into the bowels of Manhattan, leaving Odile alone and desperate to find her.

A young woman named Alphie awakens to find herself trapped across the river in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum—sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband’s vile, overbearing mother. On the ward she meets another young woman of ethereal beauty who does not speak, a girl with an extraordinary talent that might save them both.

As these strangers’ lives become increasingly connected, their stories and secrets unfold. Moving from the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular human circus to a brutal, terrifying asylum, Church of Marvels takes readers back to turn-of-the-century New York—a city of hardship and dreams, love and loneliness, hope and danger. In magnetic, luminous prose, Leslie Parry offers a richly atmospheric vision of the past in a narrative of astonishing beauty, full of wondrous enchantments-a marvellous debut that will leave readers breathless.

 

Goodreads have rated this 3.77 out of 5.

 

I love it when you pick up a non-trumpeted, little heard of book by a complete unknown author and it turns out to be a real find. Despite the occurrence of some dark subject matters, I found this story a real pleasure to read. Unfortunately I feel like I can’t say too much about the content for risk of spoiling it.

Much like last week’s book review (see Gerry Reads and Reviews Badly #2) this book was found in the Magical Realism genre section and similarly to another book that I have read in this genre* this features the Coney Island Fire and early 1900’s New York City. There must be something about this setting that lends itself to slightly dark, slightly mystical yet slightly optimistic books. Though you may have to dig deep for the optimism.

The Coney Island Fire involved the complete destruction of an amusement park, mass loss of jobs, loss of human life and the death of a number of the park’s animals and the characters are not part of high society so you get to experience 1900’s New York from those who had to struggle through it. And struggle our characters do!

We follow three characters from a third person point of view but we are treated to a prologue and epilogue in a first person point of view from the fourth character. Though this fourth character isn’t a main viewpoint character they are still a driving focus of the book.

With three protagonists to follow it could be difficult to distribute equal weighting to them however the writer has done a good job of dividing time between each of them to make sure that none remain neglected. From my perspective though if you were to choose a main protagonist it would be Odile. I don’t know if that is accurate or if it is simply my perception based on preference.

One strand of the story focuses on Odile and Belle. There is definitely some sister worship from Odile to her twin sister and though you root for them both it is shown that Belle has ‘flights of passion’ which quickly translates to ‘temper tantrums’ and so I ended up liking Odile that bit more. Belle is revered by Odile and a huge driving force to Odile’s character and motivation is her desperate and unrelenting search for the missing sister she loves. In Odile’s eyes, Belle is the better sister; the prettier one, the talented one and also the healthier one. I feel like hugging the girl because Odile is selling herself short. In no way do you feel like she is suffering from self-pity. It is merely a fact in her eyes that her sister is better. In this story though she is the Determinator (see here for what this means in trope world) and as her story unfolds so does the insight into her inner strength.

Sylvan’s strand is also very similar, at the very beginning of the story he has found an abandoned newborn baby whilst cleaning out a privy and despite all odds being against him (and him pretty much being told to leave the baby to die) he decides he will stop at nothing to find out who the baby is and why she was left. Despite an intriguing introduction I found Sylvan’s story to be the least interesting at first but it becomes apparent that he is a kind, intelligent and resourceful man who is incredibly low down in the food chain of society but that he won’t let that stop him from doing the decent thing.

The final strand is around Alphie who could have her own story. In fact the only gripe I have is that I wish hers was wrapped up more. Some of the darkest subject matter occurs in Alphie’s tale from a history of prostitution, opium dens and some rather horrifying experiences in a women’s asylum.

At first you just don’t see how their lives could connect (apart from the sisters obviously) and the stories just seem to be toddling along in separate lanes with no real urgency until suddenly it all just sort of clicks. What was a slow burner with separate journeys goes off the boil very quickly with the characters beginning to weave together quite intricately. My only gripe would be that some of these inter-connections could be deemed quite coincidental.

The reason why I can’t say too much about the content other than the characters is that I don’t want to reveal the books secrets, and believe me there are secrets. There is a twist halfway through the story which I really didn’t see coming at all and honestly I would be surprised if anyone does. On reflection details were constantly revealed throughout the story but you don’t pick up on these on the first read. It is only when the twist and some other truths are shown that you have some glorious ‘ah-hah!’ moments and a little lightbulb goes off over your head.

It is very engaging story and well written, especially for a debut writer. Check out these debut writers! It is an easy, uncomplicated read with the writing, though not exactly poetry, offering up some pretty immersive details that can be both beautiful and brutal depending on the nature of the scene. For example the way Odile speaks of the Church of Marvels, the circus home that she grew up in, is both heartfelt and tender whilst Sylvan speaks brutally of bare knuckle fights and survival in a world which for him is gutters, starvation and disease. The most vicious descriptions are reserved for Alphie’s life; both as a prostitute down by the dock, as a comforter for younger teenage prostitutes and finally as an inmate in the asylum. Miss Ratchet eat your heart out.

If you want happy this isn’t the book for you. If you want deep historical fiction this also isn’t the book for you. If you want a Magical Realism in grimy turn of the century NYC with a hint of gritty sadness and suffering then this is for you. I would say it is well worth it but then this book is probably my kind of thing.

I would give it 4 out of 5.

Until next week dear reader!

 

*’The Museum of Extraordinary Things’ by Alice Hoffman – another book that I enjoyed reading.

Gerry Reads and Reviews...Badly #2

Another book review! “Hurrah,” I hear you cry! “I’m so glad Gerry is reading books and telling me her thoughts on them.” That is definitely something I know you are thinking and maybe even saying out loud to loved ones.  

As always, if this isn’t your bag baby (imagine me saying that with a slight Austin Powers vibe) then please feel free to not continue.

This week’s book review is based on a book that took me two weeks to read. For a book with only 375 pages it shouldn’t have taken me nearly so long. This was because this one was a bit of a stop-starter. Good enough for me to want to continue to finish it but not great enough for me to have that desperate need to know what happens next.

The book is this one:-

The blurb is this:-

In the late 1930s, two men - Yaacov Markovitch, perennially unlucky in love, and Zeev Feinberg, virile owner of a lustrous moustache - are crossing the sea to marry women they have never met. They will rescue them from a Europe on the brink of catastrophe, bring them to the Jewish homeland and go their separate ways. But when Markovitch is paired with the beautiful Bella he vows to make her love him at any cost, setting in motion events that will change their lives in the most unexpected and capricious of ways.

Goodreads have rated this 3.86 out of 5, a rating which I have no problems with.

I discovered this in the Magical Realism section of the bookstore, a genre which I am rapidly getting into and enjoying. Magical Realism is a bit of a tricky genre to define and many books that may be in this section are not quite ‘magical’ and lean towards more ‘real, literary fiction’ while some I would consider to be less on the ‘real’ and so ‘magical’ that they may as well be camped out in the fantasy section. This in itself is not a bad thing but has probably been done by publishers who feel that books will sell more if they aren’t hanging out alongside dragons and witches.

Wikipedia (ah yes, highbrow research stuff there) provides a length description of Magical Realism here. The article does list several authors as being writers in this particular genre including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alice Hoffman and Angela Carter.

I have yet to read GGM however he is famous for books such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. As for Alice Hoffman and Angela Carter, well I love both those ladies.

One Night, Markovitch does share some similarities with GGM and Angela Carter. Much like GGM and other Magical Realism books the language this book was originally written in was not English. This book was translated into English from Hebrew as the writer is an Israeli national. She is also a journalist, screenwriter and a clinical psychologist and this novel was her debut. Mad props go to her for this. Honestly she can take all the mad props. The similarity she has with Angela Carter is style of writing but I will come onto this a little bit later.

 

I’m going to digress massively for a moment (you will notice I tend to digress massively a lot) and go over two things, both of which do have a purpose to this review, but please bear with me.

Thing Number One

Ahem.

In Orson Scott Card’s book Characters and Viewpoints, which I am currently re-reading, he goes over the MICE quotient. These are four elements that are present in every story, however the balance in which these occur tends to differ. Some stories may have all in equal measure whilst others can tip more towards one element then the others and in some cases do this to an extreme.

The elements are:-

Milieu – all about the story settings – the society, the weather, the planet. This is very much ‘world creation’ at its finest as this is what is of the upmost importance in this element. An example would be ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ our focus isn’t so much on Dorothy or her hopes and dreams (beyond getting home to Kansas) but the fantastical world of Oz.

Idea – seeking information and making new discoveries. The story asks a question and this question must be answered by the close. Mystery stories are idea stories, ‘who killed so and so?’ etc. Apparently a lot of speculative stories are based on the idea element. This is because those authors are often asking ‘why?’ or ‘what if?’ What if society separated people into castes? What if people could travel through time? What if crime could be prevented before it happened? Answers on a postcard for those references. 

Character – the journey of an individual character throughout the course of the story. Their place in their world, how their thoughts and feelings and actions impact them and others. How do they change as the course of the story progresses? Do they change? How does this have an impact upon their lives?

Events – Something has just happened. Could be good, is usually bad. This is the trigger for the rest of the story. How is balance and order restored? Does it get restored or does a new order have to be introduced? The story begins, not at the moment of chaos, but when a pivotal character or person steps into the scene. Our hero (or anti-hero) has entered the building. Fantasy is predominantly event based. A dragon is waking up, white walkers have begun crossing the wall etc.

If one of the above is more prominent then it just means that a story is ‘character driven’ or ‘event driven’ for example. Remember a character driven story can be rich with ideas or an event driven story can have a highly detailed milieu.

Thing Number Two

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my opinion and no one else’s – when I read a book I often find myself considering whether the book has been written by a story teller or by a writer. Of course it has been written by a writer but what I mean is whether they are story driven or prose driven. Stories can have both obviously. I have read books which contain wonderful stories and have been beautifully written and I sadly have read books which clearly don’t contain either. Some stories that I have read have both story and prose components but that it is clear to me that the author has strength in one area over another. It could be that the author is more of a story teller and that the tales they spin is their strength over their individual writing style. Others may tell stories that are confusing or even slightly boring but their writing is poetry in motion.

So how do these link into the book review? Well One Night, Markovitch is very much a character driven story so much so that there almost isn’t anything of the other elements. Instead of following one character we follow many and though Markovitch is the main character he almost doesn’t feel like the main character in what is his own book. Oddly enough this is in keeping with the type of person he is. Very bland, very middle of the road and very forgettable but this is by design and not by accident.

The timeline is vague but we follow the characters over a large portion of their lives and for some it is right up to the end. These characters experience life over the backdrop of the creation of Israel, World War Two and several Israeli/ Palestinian conflicts. We never truly know or experience these events ourselves because this story is not about those events, we merely see these, sometimes only briefly, through the eyes of the participants.

Unfortunately this doesn’t necessarily work here. For a character driven story there are a lot of characters that we follow. And as the book is written in third person it means we can skip from Markovitch to his friend, to his friend’s wife, to the man his friends wife is having an affair with and so on.

As we skip from person to person, time jumps with us. We experience an event through Markovitch’s eyes and then we jump to the next time period on (could be a week, a month, a year) but we jump into it from someone else’s viewpoint. This means that you never get to feel the full depth of how something has truly impacted a character. In short you get a taster session of characters but never the full meal and sadly for such a strongly character driven story this isn’t quite good enough.

Also the ending of the story doesn’t give you the endings of each of the characters. I know this isn’t always the case with stories, but in this one you feel like you are owed that at least especially as such a big deal is made of their lives. This does mean that the ending is a slight let down as you never get the closure that you are looking for and with a tragic incident occurring toward the end of the book full closure on the affected characters is very much needed.

I mentioned earlier that this writer has similarities to Angela Carter and this is where my ‘Thing Number Two’ comes into play. There isn’t much of a story. If you asked me what happened in the book in terms of events there are probably a handful to talk about but as per above this is because the story is truly character driven. However where this book shines is in its writing.

The author isn’t a story teller (in my humble opinion) but is a writer of some beautiful words. In this respect she is similar to Angela Carter in that her descriptions of places and people are descriptive and yet remain wonderfully sensual without being long winded. You feel immersed in the words that have been written and the author has managed to successfully maintain this standard throughout the story. Considering this has been translated from Hebrew to English I would say this is extremely good going on the parts of both the writer and the translators. Some Goodreads reviewers write that she is ‘purple prosing’ however I would disagree and say that there is some pure poetry happening within the books pages.

Would I recommend this book? Maybe not to the masses, no. If someone is an Angela Carter fan than I would say go for it. However, if you are looking for a beautifully crafted story that also has an exciting storyline this probably isn’t the one for you.

If I could break the review into components I would give a 2 out of 5 stars for story but a 4 out of 5 stars for the writing. Overall I would give it a middle ground of 3 out of 5 stars.  

Let me know how I’m getting on with these reviews and if you feel like I should just stop or something. I mean I’ll be honest with you now though, even if you beg me to stop I won’t. I’m having too much fun.

Merging Visuals and Words aka Gerry Loves an Infographic

If this blog were a TV show this week’s offering would probably be known as a ‘filler’ episode. Doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve a deep level of fulfilment but this is probably more Burger King then Gourmet Burger. I mean I am entertaining myself that any week is considered Gourmet Burger…..

This week has bought with it the arrival of autumn. I am going to go ahead and express the unpopular opinion but I am very excited about this. I am one of the very few people that I know who look forward to the end of summer and the beginning of the autumn/winter period. If I were to wax poetic I would say it suits my soul. But I’m not going to wax poetic and instead say that it suits my clothing selection of choice. Bring on those chunky jumpers, big cardigans and boots!

I am reading a book at the moment which I will hopefully be reviewing next week for those of you interested in that sort of thing and I am still doing my NaNoWriMo prep for those of you who are interested in that. As I’m still working on character prep which I bored you with last week I won’t revisit that for this week.

In case I ran out of things to blog about I found myself on Pinterest saving a pin entitled ‘September Blogging Prompts.’ Unfortunately the blogging prompts are very American and not very good. The first 4 are:-

1.       Share your favourite coffee drink recipe – erm, I don’t drink coffee so no can do on this one

2.       What fall (autumn to you and me Brits) clothing items are you dying to wear – erm, tights? I am looking forward to my legs looking significantly less pale next to others

3.       Make a fall essentials shopping list – well I don’t have one of these but I am pretty glad I can stop spending so much money on sun cream

4.       Show us how you decorate for fall – what the??? Who the hell specifically decorates their house for autumn?? Christmas I understand and Halloween I totally get but autumn?? It’s not like I’m suddenly going to create an indoor carpet of fallen leaves to match the outside world.

Well as that wasn’t wonderfully successfully and I only managed to provide you with 128 words of extremely dubious content I feel like I need to give a little bit of something else. This weekend I have been busy doing social things and working on some writing tasks and so this is going to be a relatively short blog.

It goes without saying that I love books and reading and all that comes with it so when I discover any articles or items of interest I also like to have a little read and save them. Now I am going to have a little read, save and share them!

This week I am linking you to an article called ’15 Insanely Useful Diagrams for Book Lovers.’ Thank you Buzzfeed for your highly intellectual offerings. I am no snob though and I love a book related infographic wherever I may find it. Article can be found here.

Out of the 15, my top 3 favourites have to be the ones I've included below (some of the pictures have come out teeny tiny so I recommend going to the above link for more detail).

 

1. A handy guide to which wine to select while reading. Personally I love this idea and if I knew anything about wine I would start throwing out some suggestions of my own. Except my suggestions would probably be 'here - read Trainspotting and drink a pint of vodka.'

 

2. A travel guide based around locations of children's books. If you have children and are wanting to fully immerse yourself (and them) in the literary experience of the books they are reading or if, like me, you are a big kid and want to recreate your childhood then this infographic has some wonderful suggestions.

The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe suggestion is a bit of a stretch but I can personally validate the Lake District as being a wonderful way to surround yourself in all things Peter Rabbit (I preferred Mrs Tiggy-Winkle).

3. My final selection is '15 books with more characters than you can keep track of.' These consist of some glorious classics like Bleak House by Charles Dickens and War and Peace (obviously) but also some modern favourites such as Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones). Apparently the first book 'A Game of Thrones' contains 218 named characters while the entire series itself consists of 2067.

Considering the time it is taking for George R.R. Martin to write the next book I'm probably not going to be able to remember all the characters by the time it comes out. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up constructing something out of a crime thriller with pictures and descriptions across a giant whiteboard with different coloured string connecting everyone.

Though I do quite like a lot of the minor characters (well the ones I can remember) there are plenty more I do not give a s*** about. Sorry, George. But I'd be happy if you stopped writing nonsense about the damn Martell family and concentrate on getting the band back together. And by band I mean the remaining Starks. And by together I mean happily alive. That's all I wish for.

 

Well hopefully you have enjoyed this trip down 'Gerry is being lazy lane.'

I will catch you next week.

NaNoWriMo or Another Crazy Thing Gerry Wants To Do

This week I have started my prep for NaNoWriMo (aka National Novel Writing Month). This is an event that I have never participated in before but am determined to complete this year. If you want to find out more info on what this is please click here. Had a look? Seems fun? Seems like something you want to join in on? Please do! I may need someone to sob alongside me.

Yes, this is yet another of those many things that I promised myself I was going to do and this does mean that I’ll be going ‘off-grid’ from a lot of (or all) social activities in November but you’ll have to be kind and leave me to it. I don’t necessarily want anything to come of this aside from the simple act of having done it.

I genuinely thought prepping in August was quite far in advance but as it turns out it really isn’t. Especially when the thought of writing 50,000 words of absolute festering tosh is a real possibility. Lots of people have already begun their prep and so I have decided to join them, being a little late to the party as usual, but at least not missing it.

I have a story idea that I am planning on using for a NaNoWriMo but it needs a ton more fleshing out and so the three areas that I’m having to give some focus on are:-

·         Characters

·         Setting

·         Plot

I’m hoping that the more deeply I delve into the characters and the setting the more nuances to the plot I’ll somehow unearth. At the moment I have disjointed ideas but no way of connecting them. It’s sort of feeling like dot-to-dot just without the number indicators.

First things first, I am starting this prep with characters.

There are a lot of very useful websites which provide suggestions or advice on how to create your characters and there are also a lot of websites which provide questions aimed at getting you to dig a bit deeper into your characters and make them appear real. Even if that character is a 7 foot, fire breathing lizard with 8 eyes and 4 arms. Somehow you need to connect that 7 foot reptile to your audience. By the way, this is not my main character. My main character Lizzie McLizardFace only has 6 eyes*

Some of my favourite websites I’ve been using for character creation are below:-

https://litreactor.com/columns/8-ways-to-flesh-out-a-character

This website is a good leaping point. It suggests activities such as taking a Myers-Briggs test as your character, filling in a character questionnaire, focusing on the material objects that your character would own, building a scrapbook of their life and finding them a theme song.

Another website (which I can’t remember) actually suggested building a play list for your character or a mental book shelf for them. What are the songs they would listen to? What books would they read? You could probably even go as far as asking what items exist in their fridge. What do these things tell you about that character?

I did a random shuffle and these were the first five songs on my iPod:-

1.       Fold – Jose Gonzalez

2.       The Power of the Babe – Dave Bowie (from Labyrinth)

3.       Stellar – Incubus

4.       Gypsy – Fleetwood Mac              

5.       Good Luck – Basement Jaxx

The books on my bookshelf currently consist of a lot of ‘How to Write’ non-fiction stuff, books by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Alice Hoffman, and then The Night Circus (by Erin Morgenstern), Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (by Susanna Clarke) and The Diary of Anne Frank. That’s to name a very select few.

My fridge contents contain an opened bottle of Prosecco, unopened/ unused vegetables and a lot of cheese. Not too sure what any of this says about me.

I have already done three Myers-Briggs tests, one as myself and then two as different characters. My profile for those of you who are interested is INFJ aka ‘The Advocate.’ I made Huw take one of these ages ago which he probably doesn’t remember! He came out as an ISTJ personality aka ‘The Logistician.’ Having read his profile I would say it’s actually pretty close.

If you are interested have a look at the INFJ here and see whether you think this is accurate based on what you know about me. I’d be interested in what you are if you take the test (here). See whether I think it is accurate based on what I know about you!

The below links are to some very detailed character questionnaires. Some of the questions do overlap but I found out of all the questionnaires I’ve found, I liked these ones the most:-

http://creativewritingguild.com/exercise/fleshy-character-questionnaire/

http://dehydromon.deviantart.com/art/Abridged-Character-Sheet-320864509

http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.co.uk/p/character-worksheet.html

http://character-resource.deviantart.com/art/Big-Ass-Character-Sheet-Updating-167182524

http://theticklishpear.tumblr.com/post/101817389602/the-slithering-ink-character-development

For funsies I also like to assign an alignment. This may be a conversation that I have had with you in Real Life™ as to what alignment we would be. Character alignment is based on Dungeons and Dragons and looks at an axis to determine where a character ‘fits’. This has been adopted by multiple fanbases, some alignments can be found here or if you just Google your favourite fanbase followed by ‘character alignment’ I can assure you that you will find something. Quite often the same character will crop up in different alignments and that’s the glory of viewer/ reader interpretation.

TvTropes does a wonderful job of explaining what each alignment means:-

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterAlignment

I think I may be Neutral Good. Check it out.

I have clearly gotten link happy today. Now I am off to complete numerous questionnaires.

See you next week.

*this is a joke. Just in case any of you think I am going down the hard sci-fi/ Scientology route. Which I most certainly am not. Now I’m a bit worried that I’ve mentioned Scientology in my blog. For all I know the Scientologists could be reading this right now and are preparing to take me to their leader. I don’t want to meet Tom Cruise. I find him terrifying.

Gerry Reads and Reviews...Badly

So I am sat in my study (that will never get old) on a miserable and grey Sunday drinking a glass of Prosecco for no other reason than I can. Forewarning, this glass of Prosecco will probably turn into a few and as I am putting a solitary strawberry in the glass each time I am counting this as going towards my five a day. Don’t try and disagree with me. Your logic will not work here.

Out of the many, many, many (too many) things I decided I was going to do when I had finished my masters was pick up writing on this blog again. I say this with such increasing regularity that making up excuses as to why I haven’t written a blog post is more of a habit than actually writing a blog post.

Another of those many, many, many things I decided I was going to do was review the books that I read and so I thought ‘huzzah! I shall combine the two!’ My one reader will love that idea even if they don’t love the type of books I review. My one reader who shall remain anonymous. Thank you for always reading this Simon! Oh wait…erm…

So without much more preamble I wanted to get stuck in. Here goes. Apologies if this isn’t your thing but please feel free to press that little ‘x’ in the top right corner if it isn’t. In the spirit of full disclosure I wouldn’t want to read me drone on either. As a disclaimer I have never reviewed anything in my life aside from restaurants on Trip Advisor and so there are no guarantees that I have a slight clue as to what I am doing.

This book review focuses on books one and two in a trilogy. Had I known it was a trilogy before I purchased the books I probably wouldn’t have picked them up as I have now sworn off buying trilogies or book series until all remaining books are published. I’m looking at you George R.R Martin. You are the reason.

Unfortunately I thought I was buying a book and its sequel which is why I have picked up these two and so I have decided to review them both together in a sort of merged review. Why? Because I don’t have the time or inclination to review both separately. Sadly, they weren’t that good.

The books are:-

The blurb for Red Queen is this:-

This is a world divided by blood – red or silver. The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

 

That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

 

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

 

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance – Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart.

I’m not going to post the blurb for the Glass Sword as it goes right ahead and spoils the ending of the Red Queen. Well done publishers on that executive decision. Pretty much took out any suspense as to what was going to happen in the first book. Mare (our protagonist) goes and gets herself betrayed at court. The blurb for the second book pretty much tells you actually who does that by providing such gems as ‘she makes her escape from PERSON WHO HAS BETRAYED HER, OMG I BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING!!!’ and ‘pursued by ITS THAT PERSON AGAIN, YOU KNOW THE ONE THAT BETRAYS OUR PLUCKY HEROINE IN THE FIRST BOOK, WE HAD YOU FOOLED.’ Words in caps are all mine.

Goodreads have rated Red Queen as 4.10/ 5 and Glass Sword as 3.99/5 and I just can’t work out why they have scored so highly. But then as I keep telling people, never ever underestimate the power of the teenage girl demographic.

I wanted to like these books so badly for a number of reasons. Primarily I love Young Adult fiction. I have read some wonderfully written and intelligent YA books and I cannot stand when people knock it as a literary category. Looking up Young Adult books on Goodreads throws out examples such as Lord of the Flies (holy hell really?!), Howl’s Moving Castle and The Book Thief. Not that I’m reviewing The Book Thief but that is one book that made me sit in pensive silence after closing the final page.

 

But I digress. I also wanted to like this so badly because of my fondness of finding books which contain female heroines. Contrary to some vocal opinions out there, strong female characters in fiction (and YA fiction) is not an overwhelming statistic. If you want me to compile statistics on female protagonists versus male protagonists in literary fiction then so help me I will.

The fundamental issue with these books for me hinges on the point I have just mentioned. Strong female characters. Your protagonist is important. If they are good then you follow their journey, you have the need to experience their triumph and if they are bad (as in evil) then you follow their journey because you have the need to experience their downfall. The main problem for me is that Mare, our protagonist for these books is just so unlikeable.

Some adjectives that I would use to describe our heroine include selfish, self-indulgent and my favourite ‘special snowflake.’ As the books are written in first person narrative we can only see events unfold through the eyes of Mare and if your story is being told this way then I would say it is quite important that you care and empathise with the main character.

Whilst protagonists can be unlikeable at times or have characters flaws or perform actions that make you want to, well do this…

...you should always be rooting for them. With this main character her entire story, her entire thought process is solely how the events within this world impact her and her alone. It is very much about her pain and her suffering but because she also hails herself to be pretty darned amazing the sympathy well for her starts to run a bit dry.

I hate to compare Mare against what I think is one of the ultimate YA fictional characters because I don’t always think comparisons are fair but in this case I feel it may be justified. Shout out goes to Katniss from The Hunger Games. She is an imperfect protagonist who also tends to suffer from self-indulgent stupidity and does at times within the narrative act like a self-entitled teenager but (and this is a big but) you do root for the girl. Katniss at her core is a good person with honest intentions who is out of her depth in the world she finds herself in. Whilst her actions may fall short of the mark they are done with the noblest of intentions and there is no hesitation on her part to sacrifice herself for those she loves. Mare? Well she sympathises with and has romantic overtures to a man that kills babies. I’ll get more onto that later.

So why do I feel that comparisons between Red Queen and its sequel against The Hunger Games are fair? Well that’s because Red Queen pretty much feels like a poor man’s version of The Hunger Games and other YA works. Here is my mini-checklist, apply it to whatever is appropriate:-

·         Young adult heroine fighting against a totalitarian society

·        Unique trait or ability that makes her special amongst her peers

·         Flawed character that doesn’t always do the right things but who tries to ‘follow her heart’

·         Love triangle that involves male childhood best friend

·         Lives in an impoverished part of society with a ‘them vs us’ set up

·         Has greatness suddenly thrust upon them whether they like it or not

·         This greatness has to play out in the public eye

·         Usually as the voice piece of a rebellion (this must be done reluctantly)

·         Oh by the way there is a rebellion to overthrow the previously mentioned totalitarian society

·         Remains painfully unobservant to key events happening around them

·         There is a solitary evil ruler

·         There is also a sibling, probably a younger sister who is filled with the purest of pureness and who is very much loved by the protagonist

·         The wise mentor who tries to aid the protagonist in her quest will make an appearance

·        There is also a kind and emotionally capable love interest who the protagonist tries to convince herself isn’t a love interest because the protagonist just can’t cope with the level of feels. If this were real life and one of your girlfriends were behaving this way you would literally be screaming in their face ‘Just marry him Claire!! For god’s sake he is heaven in a Henley!! If you won’t marry him then by the power of grey skull I damn well will!!’

·        Did I mention that the protagonist is a ‘key’ and ‘special’ player in the revolution above and aboard other players that have significantly more tactical and military experience?

·         There will be a popular nickname that is used instead of her real name. This becomes more and more commonplace until you start to forget what her actual name is.

·         Is there an arena? Or some kind of arena like location? A maze will also do.

In my humble opinion these two books are adhering to a tried and tested formula of what has previously been successful however while other books have some degree of originality (or lots) Red Queen and its sequel doesn’t, choosing instead to borrow from other, often better constructed, works.  

Not only do I feel these books fail with their main heroine being unsympathetic and also by being a ‘paint by numbers’ piece of YA fiction it is also massively let down by its supporting characters who have little to no personality development. The standard love triangle has been adapted into a love quadrangle. Yay. Yes, please imagine that yay to be the most sarcastic yay you have ever imagined complete with eye roll.

This quadrangle is between our female lead, two brothers (slightly tacky there Mare) and guess what? A childhood best friend. Did. Not. See. That. Coming. All involved in this quadrangle of romantic love have no real personalities to the point where I genuinely do not care if any of them get the girl. The only decent one is of course the one that she refuses to admit she wuvs. Though she does do the platonic teenage bed sharing thing with them that so often occurs in book two.

What concerns me quite massively is how Mare still pines towards one of the potential love interests all the way through to the end of book two. Possibly beyond but book three isn’t out yet. This is also one of the reasons that I grew to hate the main character during the sequel. The character she pines for is the one that betrays her during book one. Not with sexy sexy betrayal (is there even a thing?) but betrayal where he tries to murder her and multiple others, starts a war, begins to commit mass genocide against those who are different to him and then becomes the one responsible for ordering horrific incidents of torture and the deaths of babies.

I could be in the minority but I am pretty sure my feelings for such a person would take a back seat next to the atrocities they are committing. But no, Mare still pines away for him like a love sick teenager and I continue to pine away wanting to smack her round the head. With a brick.

As an aside, what is truly worrying is going on the internet and finding out that there are a lot of teenage girls who are actually in support of this Mare and mass murderer relationship. The levels of romanticising are beyond the pale. I have found comments such as ‘I fall for the dangerous bad boy so can totally see why Mare would’ and ‘I am feeling very very sorry for NAME OF BABY KILLER as it doesn’t seem like he is going to get the girl and I would really like him to get the girl. My fingers are crossed for NAME OF MURDERER WHO ACTIVELY TRIED TO KILL PROTAGONIST AND EVEN PAINFULLY BRANDED HER WITH HIS INITIAL AFTER SHE VIEWED THE HANGING CORPSE OF A CHILD HE ORDERED KILLED.’ Caps are again, mine. Obvs.

I mean who are these people?? Again, I digress.

Maybe they are able to romanticise this relationship because the way the villain is written is something straight out of panto. At times when I was reading this on the train I just wanted to yell out ‘he’s behind you!!’ In fact I would go back and re-read the books just to see if he is rubbing his hands with evil glee at any point. The problem is I only have one life and I don’t want to waste it re-reading these.

If your characters fail you, the story fails you and the romance fails you then at least sometimes you can say it was well written. Erm. Sadly in this case no. The author subscribes to the old ‘tell don’t show’ method of writing which sometimes has to occur but not for 99.9% of the writing. Instead of showing us Mare’s feelings we get gems such as ‘I am angry.’ ‘It made me feel sad.’ ‘I saw horrible things.’ I may also have skipped an entire section in the middle of the first book only to find I missed nothing at all.

The second book is much of the same as the first book, mass repetition and no subtlety except it starts to read like a poor man’s version of X-Men.  

I would like to say I wouldn’t read the third book in the trilogy but because I clearly subscribe to some level of masochism I probably will, only because I hate not finishing a book trilogy. But then to be honest I will probably just look it up on Wikipedia and find out what happens. Something which I could probably predict now.  

I’m going to give it 2 stars out of 5. One star because I actually finished reading them both and an additional star because it wasn’t a hard to read book.

If I were to be completely honest I’m going to go out and say that these books have been written to score a movie deal and is somehow managing to piggyback off of better material. Unfortunately it will probably do well as a movie because like I said earlier, never ever underestimate the power of the teenage girl demographic.

Oh look… http://screenrant.com/red-queen-books-movie-elizabeth-banks/

Sigh.

Hello....Is It Me You're Looking For?

Yes, the irony is that I am taking some time out of my dissertation to write this but I did feel the need to write this.

This is a bit of a Public Service Announcement and a bit of a pre-emptive apology for how crap I feel like I may be over the next few months.

In a nutshell if you are my friend, I bet I like you. I bet I think that you are funny or fun or supportive or kind or slightly mental or intelligent or that we have a bucket load of things in common or that you are just plain awesome and maybe you are a delightful combination of all of those things.

I can safely say that, having reached my thirties (don’t shout that now), I truly appreciate the value of having friends. And having good friends to boot. If I still act like I like you I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I probably do.

Which is why I feel very guilty about the fact that I’m probably going to be a very bad friend for the next few months. If I am unable to meet up with you, or cancel plans or just take an extraordinarily long time to come back to you on what seems like a simple question then I am very sorry.

This is the final push on my Master’s degree. I am fully ensconced in Dissertation mode and that final deadline of the 6th May. It seems quite minor to most but to me this is a huge deal. I may be trying to explain to you at some point in the near future why I can’t make your particular event or why we may have to catch up properly post 6th May. I apologise for this and hope I don’t miss some really cool stuff.

My pre-emptive apology is also for the fact that I may cancel on you. I may have gotten over confident with how much time I think I have or how much capability I think I have to do something and then agree to certain social events which then I realise I can’t attend.

Believe me, I feel guilty and it also pains me. I like being social. I much prefer going out and seeing people I like then re-editing the same Literature Review five times and panicking at 3am because ‘I’m just not getting it.’ And by that I mean what the hell I am supposed to be doing with said Literature Review and also sleep. I sure miss sleep.

My weekdays consists of me leaving the house at 7.20 and not returning until 18.30. I get to take a wonderful half hour break for dinner before I start digging into my Masters which I do until my tired puffy eyes give up. Then I get the entire weekend to focus on it. Yay.

I have done this practically every day for the past three years. Minus those glorious months off in the summer where I have left my hovel and have practically sobbed into the fresh air.

I think I felt a bit like this guy:-






Essentially I just want to let people know that this is the final push. The last four months that I will be an anti-social, tired bore.

I know that other people have busy lives and more pressing worries that are constantly on their mind and they are extremely important and valid. I think what I am trying to say is that I am just a girl, sitting in front of her computer telling people why she may be a disorganised ditz and trying to get them to understand why. (Shout out to Notting Hill for the prompt. Most helpful).

My main concern is that I don’t want to have wasted three years of study and a shed load of money to fall at the final hurdle. That and the fact that Huw and I have been together 5 and a half years and 3 of those has been spent with me behind a computer or a mountain of textbooks. We may actually have to have a proper conversation and you know, get to know each other, when this is all done. I might find out things I never knew. Like what he’s been doing in the workshop this entire time.

Is it this? Or this? Or even this?? Stay tuned viewer and we will found out in May.

Huw has done an excellent job at keeping me and the zoo alive during this time so he does deserve massive kudos for that.

Basically I’m asking you to bear with me. I’m sorry if I’ve been bad. Sometimes I’ve felt so tired and so stressed I haven’t been able to convey it properly in words. I may have just sobbed at you if you’re one of those (un)lucky people.

I’m also sorry if I am bad in the next few months. Give me a nudge and see how I am. I’d probably appreciate it and wouldn’t realise how fast the time has gone. Maybe ask me how my dissertation is going. Hell, maybe even ask me what my dissertation is about. Even if you switch off halfway through and recount episodes of TV that you have watched I will sure appreciate your pretend interest and will ignore those glazed over eyes.

I can’t wait to properly have a life again that doesn't involve studies or watching the kitten destroy our carpet. I bet I miss you.