Kaleidosophie: June 2014

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Review #48 - A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic

Trigger warning: murder and suicide

Despite the fact I bought this is in New York's Strand bookstore this book is British. It's about a teacher who goes into assembly one day and goes and kills three people. It follows the police woman in charge of the case and her working out why the teacher did this atrocity.

The book is written from two different types of perspectives; one is the third person following the police advancements of the case and the other is the dialouge from the testimonies. This is where the writing really really shines. They are woven together really well. Each character has a very distinct voice and this is probably the book's strongest point.

This book is gorgeously British, from references to supermarkets to the education system. I loved it for that. I don't think it would have had the same effect if it was set in the USA as they have a much stronger gun culture and school shootings are much more regular (which is just awful). It was shocking and the response was so strong because it never happens.

It was very gripping and paced really well. The narrative added to the pace in a really positive manner. It was just a really good crime novel that isn't too gory.

There was a lot about prejudice and bullying cultures throughout the book which felt like a social commentary. This part in the book especially was very dark and wasn't exactly a summer read. Most definitely an adult book.

I would recommend this if:
You want a non-gory entry into crime
You would like a book on crime that is very British
You want a book that is a caricature of British senior schools.

I gave this four stars.

Buy it here

Tuesday 24 June 2014

Review #57 - Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas

I often struggle with reviews. I find it hard to put what I didn't like about the book into words and coherent sentences. I have struggled to write this review because no words can quite put into words how I am feeling right now but for the opposite reason. This book is so perfect, it is impossible (well almost impossible) to quite put what I adored about it into words.

This is the third book in the Throne of Glass series and I received this is an ARC from Bloomsbury. For that I am so so grateful and is the best end of exam present ever. This review will be spoiler free.

The book is cleverly written: in the words that are picked, the dialogue (which I read over four or five times) and the relationships that are built. There are three main story lines and I did have a definite favourite but I adored all of them. The pace was maintained well in all three and covered all my favourite characters.

The emotions that I feel for these characters are beyond a level that is considered rational. I am emotionally invested in them beyond belief (especially to do with a certain new character who was introduced in this book). And Celaena is just as smart and brave and real as she ever has been. I read Assassins Blade when it came out (March) and the contrast between Celaena then and Celaena now is astonishing and so well written.

Honestly, I love these characters like my friends.

When I was about 40% of the way through this book I started thinking that I hadn't felt the emotions the book was stirring in me since Dumbledore's final scene in Harry Potter. By the end I knew it was much more than that. I haven't ever felt the emotion it stirred in me ever before, in real life or fiction. The best way I can describe it is pride mixed with love mixed with pure joy mixed with comfort mixed with a tinge of sorrow for all my darling characters.

I have grown up having "comfort books" that I lived on and grew from. Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Juliet Dove. All those series ended and though I was satisfied with those endings nothing ever really has filled the gap left by these writers. And then I discovered Sarah J Maas. I met her in October and right now, if I never meet JK Rowling (which was always my childhood and teenage dream) I think I will be okay, because I have a book that tells me to rattle the stars. Sarah J Maas has filled the literary hole in my heart and for that I will always be grateful.

Thank you, Sarah J Maas.

I would recommend this to:
Anyone with a heart
Everyone who is human
Everyone who contains an X chromosome

If you have read Crown of Midnight Sarah J Maas did an excellent video on Heir of Fire

Heir of Fire will be available September 2014.

Buy Throne of Glass (#1) here

Buy Crown of Midnight (#2) here

Buy The Assassins Blade (#0.1-0.5) here
I have linked all the UK editions because you don't have to separate them on a colour coded bookshelf and they look awesome.

Monday 23 June 2014

An Explanation

I feel like I owe you an explanation, though I probably don't, about why I haven't been posting quite as much in the past three or four weeks.

In the UK we have three major sets of exams before university: GCSEs, AS levels and A2s. AS Levels and A2s take up your last two years of school and I did my GCSEs last year. Typically people do 10 GCSEs, 4 AS levels and then 3 A2s.

I decided at the beginning of this year that I was going to do my 4 AS levels in Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Maths this year and then also an A2 in Maths. Also in June I have to write a personal statement for the uni application (quakes in boots) and the last 2000 words of my 5000 word essay on if TENS can be used as an effective pain relief for Phantom Limb Pain (plot twist, it can't.)

So I spent every hour of every day doing past paper after past paper of C3 and C4 (maths). So I didn't have much time to blog or even read. But last Wednesday was the day my exams finished and even though my personal statement needs work and I've still got 500 words of this essay to write, I am trying to get back into activities I did in my spare time before exam season. Like reading Heir of Fire. Blogging. Arranging trips to Legoland Windsor. The usual.

I'm back to give very opinionated reviews and to generally stroke books. Talk about summer. Hello world, I'm out of my bedroom and ready.

Sunday 15 June 2014

Review #47 - Start Here: Read Your Way Into 25 Amazing Authors

This will be a short review as this book is about 170 pages. It's a book where different people tell you in which order to read books of a certain author if you want to start reading them, i.e. if you want to read Dickens you should read Oliver Twist.

This book is suppose to inspire you to read the authors it talks about when really I just wanted the book to be over so I could add it to my goodreads challenge. If anything it put me off the authors it talked about even though I am a big fan of a couple of them (Arthur Miller etc).

The book is really short with a lot of spacing so it didn't bore me to tears as it was short so it was over and done with quickly. I guess that's what made it two stars rather than one star.

Parts of this book are written my academics who are experts on the authors they are discussing. As a result the order that they put the author's books in were in a good author to see the evolution of their writing etc, but it wasn't a good order for someone who is intimidated by authors, who are the target audience. For example, the book recommends you read Oliver Twist first, when that book is a good 500 pages. It didn't think about the audience, but then again, these are academics not CEOs.

I would recommend this if:
You can get this for free
You are a child prodigy academic and just want to read some E M Forster for fun
You have read every author and want to hear academics opinions

I gave this two stars

E book only.

Wednesday 11 June 2014

Review #46 - Ann Veronica by H G Wells

This is an Edwardian book about a girl called Ann Veronica who's father forbids her from studying Biology at Imperial so she goes to London by herself to become a student. However, while she is there she falls in love with one of the professors.

This is a really, really good book but I did have a concern about it. That, however, didn't stop it becoming really important to me as a book. It left me wanting to buy an actual copy and being one of the five to ten books I take to university next year. It was just this perfect balance between being pro-women's-rights/feminism and wanting to be a mother and part of the "classic female" roles.

Ann Veronica is one of my favourite female characters of all time because she is strong and resourceful especially in the time that the book was written. I really liked how she wouldn't conform because she felt that it was oppressive and really a really good reflection on H G Wells. Also, there is a part of me that feels very similar to Ann Veronica vis-à-vis an obsession with London and wanting to do a Biology degree etc. There was also this contrast between her strength and her naivety which I loved.

The sentence construction was really beautiful "Were I a painter of subject pictures, I would exhaust all my skill in proportion and perspective and atmosphere upon the august seat of empire, I would present it grey and dignified and immense and respectable beyond any mere verbal description, and then in vivid black and very small, I would put in those valiantly impertinent vans, squatting at the base of its altitudes and pouring out a swift straggling rush of ominous little black objects, minute figures of determined women at war with the universe." My favourite parts were the bits where Ann Veronica was in love: "and now her mind was so full of the thought that she was in love - in love! that marvellous state!" They were just really, really powerful and captures it so so perfectly.

It did go on a bit but that is my only criticism. It isn't one for people who get bored easily.

There is a fabulous paper on feminism and femininity in Ann Veronica by L.S. Limanta (spoiler-full though) so if you do want to read that (or just skim it) click here

I would recommend this if:

You want to read more Edwardian Literature

You want to read a book that captures female life so wonderfully

You want a book that reads freaking beautifully.

Buy it here

I gave this four stars

"I wonder" said Ann Veronica at last "if I am beautiful? I wonder if I shall ever shine like a light, like a translucent goddess?"

She wondered why he was so distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for some time that this might be because she was falling in love with him.

"I want to be a person" said Ann Veronica to the Downs and the open sky; "I will not have this happen to me, whatever else may happen in its place."

Tuesday 10 June 2014

Review #45 - We Were Liars by E Lockhart

In all seriousness go into it not knowing anything because otherwise I'd think it'd ruin it.

Monday 9 June 2014

Review #44 - Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins

*takes deep breath in and out*

This has glorious reviews. Booktube was raving about it. I went into it with high hopes. This book was going to be exciting. It would be one of the best books I'd read in 2014. And it did keep me interested because the plot was intriguing. I'll give it that. I read it in a relatively short space of time but I really disliked this book.

Harper goes to her Homecoming and is about to be crowned queen when something strange and mystical happens while putting on her lip gloss. Then her life takes a crazy twist and she has to protect the one boy she hates.

First problem - it was full of this "perfect daughter" stereotype and this really bugged me. I can't explain it (great review there, Sophie) but I felt like everything that happened was met with "oh I can't do this, why is this happening to me, I'm the perfect daughter." It felt really really moany. Ok, maybe I can explain it.

I love stand alone books and occasionally series (cough Throne of Glass cough) and this is the first book of a series. I like books in series if they have endings that are worthy of the amount of time you spend on the book. I felt the ending was inconclusive and just didn't feel satisfied. It felt like it added "an element of surprise" just to make you want to keep reading without giving the first book a real ending. I don't want to keep reading. I'm not spending any more money on this book.

This was a very girly book. I won't deny that I spend my life in skirts and I am addicted to Urban Decay. This was too girly for me. I felt like it locked out a lot of its potential readership and the cover didn't reflect this as the knife sort of suggested it would be girly like Throne of Glass is girly. It was a little too obsessed with lipgloss and didn't really capture "awesome female warrior princess" like I'd hoped.

This is a very rom-com book. If a Drew Barrymore or Jennifer Aniston film could be made into a book it would look like this.

I would recommend this if:

You want some really girly fiction while having adventure

You love chick flicks

You like series (ok I was a bit short of ideas this time)

I gave this two stars

You know what, don't buy it.

My general tbd link

Monday 2 June 2014

Review #43 - How to Worry Less about Money by John Armstrong

This is a book by the School of Life on money. Every book I've ever read about money (which isn't a vast amount of books) says how to manage money, how to keep track of it so you can afford holidays and cars etc etc. I am great at managing money (I was the FD for my Young Enterprise company) but I still worry about it. This is what this book is for.

This wasn't particularly practical or useful if you are struggling to manage your money. It was oddly philosophical. It talked about relationships with money and how to think about it in a healthy way so you don't hate not having money or fear money. It was a really different way of looking at finance. It was a much "smarter" book than all the other "this-is-how-you-budget" books.

This merges the gap between non-fiction and fiction really well. It's full of little short stories that are used as examples for the main points within the chapters. These made this different to normal non-fiction and really made it stand out from the genre. I do really like little stories in non-fiction.

I did disagree with some concepts that felt like the author was justifying his own lack of wealth. There was one point he made where he said that the satisfaction your job brought you goes down with income, so high income jobs could not be fulfilling. It felt like the author was telling himself that he wasn't well off because he was doing a job that was fulfilling. It made me feel like the rest of the book would be biased and trust it less.

It definitely wasn't aimed at my age group so some parts were really irrelevant because large parts were all about having a job. The other parts were still really good.

The School of Life makes these beautiful books and they look so pretty and they have rounded corners and they're so cool.

Buy it here at TBD

Sunday 1 June 2014

May 2014 Wrap Up

Buy any of these books here

1. Lean In: For Graduates by Sheryl Sandberg (★★★★★)
2. Just One Day by Gayle Forman (★★★★★)
3. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (★★★★☆)
4. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (★★★☆☆)
5. The Treatment by Suzanne Young (★★☆☆☆)
6. The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart (★★★☆☆)
7. How to Worry Less about Money by John Armstrong (★★★★☆)
8. Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins (★★☆☆☆)
9. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (★★★★★)
10. Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells (★★★★☆)
11. Start Here: Read Your Way Into 25 Amazing Authors by Jeff O'Neal (★★☆☆☆)
12. A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic (★★★★☆)

London Count: 3 (I know, I surprised myself with that one)

I've had a lot of blog views this month. My blog views plummeted when I changed my URL last December but they're back! Hi to the USA, we haven't seen you in ages. I love you guys though. Hi to the Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus and China. Thank you to everyone who reads, Amy-Anne, my lovely main commenter and anyone who buys from my book depository link. You guys are the best.

1. I want to do well academically I think I'm ok atm. Shockingly
2. I want to get interviews for medicine (n/a)
3. I want to start writing a novel Little bits are coming through.
4. I want to get well enough to go to South Africa with Biology. 45 days to go!
5. I want to write more. Is it happening? I think it's happening? I need to do that sunflower award thing.
6. I want to write more reviews. I feel like it's going better
7. I want to blog more consistently. Ditto
8. I want to do more for my future. myehhhh/A Levels
9. I want to take more photos. Hi have you seen my instagram?
10. I want to keep my room tidy. Unfortunately past papers happened
11. I want to be more productive. I AM ON PRODUCTIVITY FIRE
12. I want to stop being terrified of growing up. Yes yes YES I am finally looking forward to it.

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