Welcome

“Let us read, and let us dance;
these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
Showing posts with label Lainibop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lainibop. Show all posts

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Lainibop Challenge - Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries

I made this: Unknown at 8:00 am 0 comments

READ!TO GO!
28102


The LainiBop Challenge

SEXING THE CHERRIES
JEANETTE WINTERSON

* * * * *
* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
* * * * *

BLURB
In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the reader from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.
This was a second time read for me, I took a course in college on Magical Realism and this was one of the books I had to read. 

“Magical Realism is a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment.” 
Wikipedia. 

In this case this novel tells the story of the gigantic Dog Woman and her adopted son Jordan. The story is told amidst lots of flitting back and forth through time and space, with jumps from one story to another with little or no warning. 

For example, Jordan hears the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses from Grimm's Fairy Tales. However, he hears a sequel to this from eleven of the princesses themselves. 

They tell of what happened to them and their husbands after their wedding day and it is not exactly the happily ever after you might expect. 

Jordan then becomes obsessed with finding the missing princess Fortunata and hearing her story.

At time confusing, and always a little strange, I found this book to be quite enjoyable on the second reading, it's fun, a little disturbing at times, but a real page turner. 

SCORE       

7/10

* * * * *
Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!


Book 30 - ?
Book 29 - ?
Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson
Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer


Find more reviews HERE



If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 
Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE
The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!
* * * * *
Table of Contents - Guest Stars

* * * * *
Table of Contents - Laini's Book Shelf

* * * * *
Categories ,

Sunday, 21 July 2013

Lainibop Challenge - Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice

I made this: Unknown at 8:00 am 0 comments

READ!TO GO!
27103


The LainiBop Challenge

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
JANE AUSTEN

* * * * *
* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
* * * * *

BLURB
This much-loved novel by Jane Austen was first published in 1813 and Solis Press is proud to produce this 200th anniversary edition.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," so starts this social satire on the marriage market in Regency England.

With five daughters and no money for dowries, Mrs. Bennet's main ambition in life is to find suitable matches for her girls.

When eligible and wealthy Mr. Bingley moves into the area, Mrs. Bennet seizes the opportunity to advance her plan. She embarks on a determined campaign to see him settled with her eldest daughter, Jane.

The discovery that Mr. Bingley's richer, handsomer, but haughty friend, Fitzwilliam Darcy, will also be in residence sets Mrs. Bennet in even more of a spin. This is much to Elizabeth ("Lizzy") Bennet's distress, as Lizzy is daughter number two and so next in line in the suitor stakes.

The path of the Bennet sisters is fraught with misunderstandings, deceptions, jealousy, and hypocrisy, but it is a journey that has captivated readers, making Pride and Prejudice one of the most popular works of all time.
A certain friend of mine who shall remain nameless (IT'S ME!!!)cites this as one of her favourite books of all time. As such, she has been trying to get me to read it for quite a few years now. On a recent visit to her, I happened to be in a bookshop and found a very reasonable second hand copy so on her advice I bought it.

I'm sorry to say that the only thing I really knew about this novel before reading it, was that it was a love story about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. I also knew that Mr Darcy was the type of man to make women swoon in his presence and by women I mean female readers, not just the characters in the book.

Unfortunately for me and also for my friend, who will probably kill me for writing this, Mr Darcy did not have that effect on me. Not even close in fact. Let me start at the beginning....

Elizabeth Bennet is one of the main characters in the book, she is the second eldest of a family of 5 daughters. Mrs Bennet is primarily concerned with making decent matches for her daughters and will do anything to put them in the sights of eligible gentlemen. Elizabeths older sister Jane soon catches the eye of Mr Bingley the latest batchelor to move into the area, and Mrs Bennet has high hopes for the couple. Now enter Mr Darcy, who is a close friend of Mr Bingley, but in contrast to Mr Bingley's friendly, and enthusiastic air, Mr Darcy is quite shy and reserved, which comes across to the Bennets as condescending and a little bit snobby.

So where is the grand romance?...I'm not too sure either, you see Darcy appears to take a dislike to the Bennets because of their status, and Elizabeth takes an immediate dislike to Darcy as she overhears him saying that there are no attractive women in the room for him to make the effort to dance with (bearing in mind he had just caught her eye moments before...ouch!). Things become yet more complicated when Elizabeth becomes a confidant for an old friend of Darcy's and hears a story of his past that paints a very ugly picture.

You would think this should be the end of their aquaintance, but that would make a very short and uncomplicated story now wouldn't it? No, instead things get more complicated and life keeps throwing them together.

My main problem with the book is the characters, I just couldn't relate to them at all. From the annoying sister Lydia, who is supposed to be annoying to Elizabeth and Darcy themselves I just couldn't bring myself to like any of them. Elizabeth is too quick to judge, for a character who is supposed to be strong willed, she believes whatever she is told about people without giving a second thought, and has no problems in spreading these lies to other people. Darcy is stubborn and condescending, he also judges people very quickly but in this case he bases his judgements on outward appearances, he wants nothing to do with the Bennets because of their status and also because of the way he see's Lydia behave at a party and again delights in discouraging his friends from any association with them too.

For me to like a novel, I must have some sort of relationship with the characters in it, I must either love them, pity them, or despise them, but with this, my dislike of the characters only went so far as to ensure I didn't really care about them or the events in their lives. I have a feeling I could get lynched for this review however the novel just didn't appeal to me one little bit. Won't be picking it up again I'm afraid, although saying that, I did watch the film with Keira Knightly and also the BBC adaptation which weren't bad so maybe I'd recommend a night in with some popcorn instead of picking up the book.

YouTube Playlist

SCORE       

5/10

* * * * *
Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!



Book 30 - ?
Book 29 - ?
Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson
Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer


Find more reviews HERE



If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 
Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE
The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!
* * * * *
Table of Contents - Guest Stars

* * * * *
Table of Contents - Laini's Book Shelf

* * * * *
Categories ,

Friday, 21 June 2013

Lainibop Challenge - Book 26 - Breaking Dawn

I made this: Unknown at 8:00 am 0 comments

READ!TO GO!
26104
The LainiBop Challenge

BREAKING DAWN
STEPHANIE MEYER

* * * * *
* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
* * * * *

BLURB
When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.

Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life--first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse--seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?

The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.


Sparkles? Geddit?
Sparkles!
At last the end is here! I won't lie, I get quite a kick out of the Twilight series, both movies and books. I'm not ashamed to say that I couldn't wait for Breaking Dawn Part 2 to come out in the cinema not least because I had decided to wait until I had seen it before reading the last installment.

Bella and Edward are finally getting married, just so that she can become a vampire though.....nah I'm sure she fancies him too. Jacob is none too happy about all of this, and disappears for a while. And just when you think the happy couple will have a happy ending to all of this, you realise that you're only a couple of chapters in and this hunk of a book is kinda heavy. Nope they're not getting away that easily, and after a fabulous honeymoon in Isle Esme, Bella finds herself with child. Uh oh. Now we have to contend with Bella's fight against the “thing” growing inside her which kind of wants to eat her, and also against the Volturi who are coming to investigate.

It's a really exciting climax to the series, and I really enjoyed it. I thought that the movie did a great job, and must confess I have watched it more than once.
it's over...yippee! 

Of course Bella and Edward annoyed me, just like they have in all of the other books (Team Jacob all the way!). However I think that there was plenty of suspense and action, to keep me gripped throughout, despite knowing what happens thanks to the film. It felt like an awful lot happened in the book and I have to say I like getting value for my reading time. It was a bittersweet ending when I read the last page, knowing that there was no more Twilight for me. Now what to get hooked on next?

YouTube


SCORE       

8/10

* * * * *
Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!



Book 30 - ?
Book 29 - ?
Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson
Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer


Find more reviews HERE

If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 
Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE
The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!
* * * * *
Table of Contents - Guest Stars

* * * * *
Table of Contents - Laini's Book Shelf

* * * * *
Categories , ,

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Lainibop Challenge Book 25 - Cloud Atlas

I made this: Unknown at 3:32 pm 0 comments

READ!TO GO!
25105

The LainiBop Challenge

CLOUD ATLAS
DAVID MITCHELL

* * * * *
* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
* * * * *

BLURB
Mitchell's virtuosic novel presents six narratives that evoke an array of genres, from Melvillean high-seas drama to California noir and dystopian fantasy. There is a naïve clerk on a nineteenth-century Polynesian voyage; an aspiring composer who insinuates himself into the home of a syphilitic genius; a journalist investigating a nuclear plant; a publisher with a dangerous best-seller on his hands; and a cloned human being created for slave labor. 
These five stories are bisected and arranged around a sixth, the oral history of a post-apocalyptic island, which forms the heart of the novel. Only after this do the second halves of the stories fall into place, pulling the novel's themes into focus: the ease with which one group enslaves another, and the constant rewriting of the past by those who control the present. 
Against such forces, Mitchell's characters reveal a quiet tenacity. When the clerk is told that his life amounts to "no more than one drop in a limitless ocean," he asks, "Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?" 
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker


I had wanted to read Cloud Atlas for quite a while, and when I heard that the movie was coming out I thought, What better time? Alas it didn't live up to my high expectations.

The book is divided into 6 parts, following 6 different people at various points in history and also into the future. 
It starts off with The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, told from the first person perspective, and continues moving at seemingly random time gaps up until An Orison of Somni, set in the future where cloned people have become the slaves of mankind and further again to Sloosha's Crossin an Ev'rythin' After which seems to be set after the fall of the human race and it's apparent degeneration into primitive tribes.

Now it wasn't the composition of the book which put me off, on the contrary I tend to like novels which flick back and forth through time, I really enjoyed Kate Moss' books which do this to a certain extent and have recently read The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson which can be quite confusing in its jumps, but which I also really enjoyed. Neither was it the change of style and pace between the historical and the science fiction chapters of the book as these are both styles of writing I savour.

I think, perhaps it was that my expectations were too high for this book and the story just didn't grip me the way it should have. I enjoyed the individual stories contained in this book and I really liked the way it progressed into the future up to the middle of the book and then began to return to the past along the same course it had already taken. I think what bothered me the most was the fact that I felt that each person and each story deserved a novel to themselves. They felt disjointed from each other, there was no obvious connection. Reincarnation was alluded to at various stages of the book and little hints were dropped in here and there, however although the connection between some of the stories were obvious, such as An Orison of Somni and Sloosha's Crossin, all in all, I didn't see the point of putting this collection of stories together in this way.

I really enjoyed the story within a story, with Frobisher discovering the diary of Adam Ewing and in turn Louisa Rey reading through the letters from Frobisher to Sixsmith. I would love to say that I enjoyed it all, but I was also very disappointed. I still haven't seen the movie but I definitely intend to as I'm still very curious as to how they will deal with certain sections, and I'm hoping the inspiration I missed while reading the novel will hit when I see it on the “big screen”.

LBC also reviewed the book HERE for #MedusaLBC and HERE for #ArcadiaLBC.

YouTube 

SCORE       

6/10

* * * * *
Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!



Book 30 - ?
Book 29 - ?
Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson
Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer


Find more reviews HERE



If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 
Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE
The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!
* * * * *
Table of Contents - Guest Stars

* * * * *
Table of Contents - Laini's Book Shelf

* * * * *
Categories ,
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )
 

Leeds Book Club Copyright © 2010 Designed by Ipietoon Blogger Template Sponsored by Online Shop Vector by Artshare