readingrobyn's reviews
738 reviews

This book was another case of my not being able to connect to the main character, despite even having a good amount in common with her at the time of my reading this.

The writing was solid and I like the concept behind the plot but Egg's narrative just wasn't enough to keep me invested. Not a bad book, but not my thing.

It first hit me on page 81, I was bored. So very, very bored.

My main problem and probably the reason I'm so disappointed can be summed up this way, on the back of the book there is this a praise by Stephen King:

"Every novel [Ira Levin] has ever written has been a marvel of plotting. He is the Swiss watchmaker of the suspense novel." - Stephen King

I absolutely agree that Ira Levin is an amazing writer and to have come up with and popularized this story I give him full credit and praise. However, even the best of Swiss watches can't compare to an iPhone. ...I think it is safe to assume that I am part of the generation that has felt the trickle down of this novel and such social commentary on women's issues throughout my popular culture. This made the major draw of the book, the chilling implications of a woman's struggle in society, more of a mute point for me.

For the first 50 or so pages I enjoyed reading the narrative of a stay-at-home mother who had just moved to a suburb town called Stepford. The story takes place as she tries to balance the responsibilities of self, husband, and home while looking dubiously upon her neighbours who behave as 1950's housewives and lack all facets of personality. That right there was interesting, the plot was interesting! And having seen the 2004 movie I had the unspoken promise that I already had a general idea of where the plot would go (only general because the movie was remake.)

But then it hit me, by page 81 I was ready to be done with Stepford.

Suspense as a genre is all about the build up, creating tension and interest where there may or may not be something afoot and although The Stepford Wives has this excellent concept and is well written, gradually the book transformed from a novel to what felt like a very, very long short story. (Perhaps it is more of a novella?) I expected more, maybe too much but I at least expected to not feel like a book that is less then 130 pages to drag on.

I found that the ending although smart and suspenseful just wasn't worth it. A definite disappointment.

Fairest attempts to bring song to print and lost me in the translation.

This is one of those books that I wanted to like but was unable to involve myself in the story because of the entanglement of songs written into the plot. Trying to imagine the songs being sung and creating a melody from nothing brought me out of the story and into my head. This bothered me especially because song is such a major element of the world that Levine is trying to build that this disturbance is ever present throughout the book.

In the moments I was truly involved in the story I found the plot, the characters and the message being told to be intriguing and well written. It was these sections that made me read on to finish the entire book, but my problems with the incorporated music is what stayed with me in the end.

Overall I do want to return to Fairest at some point and give it a second chance, only this time it will have to be an audio book instead.

This book has been sitting on my virtual shelf even pre-GoodReads membership and I'm glad that even after all this time I have finally got around to reading this.

I thought initially that Book of a Thousand Days would be more of a light fairytale about friendship then the dark, more imaginative story that the book turned out to really be. I adored reading Dashti's perspective, she is such a grounded and kind female character that somehow despite her circumstances never got whiny or annoying with her narrative.

I'll admit that I had some minor problems with the first part of the book while Dashti lived imprisoned for the sole reason of Lady Saren. Equal to the amount I enjoyed Dashti, I disliked Saren. For someone in her situation she seemed rather ungrateful for Dashti being with her, even after two years of imprisonment which to me seems rather inhuman. As the book continues Saren's behaviour begins to make more sense but while I was reading I just did not share Dashti's sympathy for her. As a result of this reading about Sarens struggles were more irksome then interesting. I did however in the end come to like Sarens character and knowing the way the story plays out how Shannon Hale was writing her makes sense with the plot.

Book of a Thousand Days managed to weaved a rather fantastical story in a believable, intricate world with an adventure that could have gone in any direction. This wasn't something I expected from a story that after putting off for so long I had many expectation for. This is an excellent adventure-fantasy book and I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a fairy tale retold.

This review applies to all 7 books of the Kamichama Karin Series and contains no spoilers.

A little back story for my own personal remembrance, when I first picked up this series it was at the urging of a friend who owned a copy and was letting me borrow it. I had just started to read manga through borrowing other books from her collection and was at that time still getting use to reading in the opposite direction. This was about three years ago and I ended up specifically loving this series so much that I would delve even deeper to the Japanese fandom. Soon finding myself obsessed with the country and this medium, that has still persisted to this day.

Now, Kamichama is one of my absolute favourites thus far. This was the perfect introduction to reading manga and all the crazy worlds that come with it.

I love the art, the styles are so mixed, going from incredibly detailed panels, to the classics of manga emotion, to adorable chibi-like drawings. The characters were always funny or at the very least adorable, and were layered enough to make you invest in their individual stories. The plot however, is a little bit harder for me to describe with proper praise. Although sometimes the story-lines got a bit too chaotic, Kamichama also has its strong moments. The biggest being the pure originality of each storyline littered with constant questions, great character twists, and the strangest relationship dynamics. These elements made up for any problems I had with keeping track of everyone's motives.

I think that the strongest aspect of this series is that it acknowledges and understands its own weirdness (boarder line stupid-fun) and embraces it all for one fun and oddly interesting manga.

This book came to me at the perfect time, I have just finished studying the French Revolution and Napoleon in school and had previously been keeping my eye on when it would be released and library holds could be placed. Now that I have finally finished I can say that I loved it!

I didn't know what to exactly expect when I first began Revolution but soon found that I couldn't put it down.

The first part of Revolution was emotional for me. Being a teenager who has dealt with suicidal depression myself I am always wary picking up books that I know are going to be about the topic. But if this makes any sense, it holds its own gravity. Yes, it is intense, maybe to intense for some readers but it has that realism that didn't try to turn the situation into something it wasn't. While reading I didn't mind the heavy emotion because it worked so well with the writing. It created a serious connection and not just a young adult PSA.

After really getting into the book it took quite a while for the French Revolution to come into play, which I thought was a great build up. I loved these sections of the book. The story is compelling and there is this great contrast between Andi and Alex but both stories still have the same feel.

The details were remarkable and I loved being able to read about the revolution from the monarchy perspective which isn't really touched upon when reading a text book.

There are many sides to one story and Alex's had the perfect combination of desperation and hope.

I also enjoyed the music incorperated into the story. Not a lot of novels touch on anything pertaining to sound because it doesn't always translate well. However, through Andi, her thesis and her love of music it was actually very interesting and didn't have the skipping record effect that most books attempting this sort of translation end up having.

The book also does something that I was excited to see with character writing. Just because the book is about the French Revolution doesn't mean that everything about the characters or the story relates directly back to the Revolution right from day one, page one.

It takes a while for the second half of the story to come about but Andi isn't originally interested in the revolution. Instead in a more realistic manner she ends up sort of falling into it. It starts with music and a specific composer whose name I can't actually find and it continues with this path to the very end, this is something I really enjoyed seeing.

Now I know I could go on, and on, and on about everything this book is about and I really wish I could touch upon parts of the plot without giving spoilers but then this review would just never end.

So, in conclusion I loved it. It was simply amazing! Go read it and feel all melancholy about life because this book it worth tapping into that emotion and letting the story of Revolution take you there.

This book was remarkable!