I didn’t finish the whole Lord of the Rings, but I read the first bit. I got caught up with other books,
because I have the attention span of a 12-year-old kid with ADD who had a lot
of sugar. I did start, so I am all excited about the story and the language and
the weirdness. I love Frodo, and Sam is the best hobbit in the entire universe.
Gandalf is so cool, and can I please marry Aragorn? I love it so much. I am so
looking forward to the rest of the book. I can’t believe how excited I am about
this. Some of the songs are so beautiful, and why wasn’t Tom Bombadil in the
movie? It is AWESOME.
The Wasp Factory freaked me the hell out. It was uh,
weird. It’s about a 16-year-old kid named Francis, referred to as Frank, who
technically doesn’t exist. His dad never registered him, or baptized him, or
anything else to make him an actual member of society. Frank lives on a little
island outside of Scotland. He lives with his dad, in a life of common contempt
and distrust. He has an older brother named Eric, who lives in an institution
because he had a nervous breakdown and started setting fire to dogs. Frank also
had a little brother, who is dead. On the back of the book Frank explains that
he has killed three kids, but he won’t do it again, it was just a phase. Then Eric
breaks out of the hospitals and is on his way home. Frank quite likes blowing
up stuff, killing animals and getting drunk. He has his own altar with the
skull of a dog that savagely hurt him when he was a kid. Banks is a badass
writer. He alludes to all these things that have happened to Frank as he grew
up and eventually we get to hear what it is. It was interestingly paced and I
got so curious as to what was going on. I spent a day flying back and forth to
Norway so I had a lot of time to read, I read the whole book in one day. I am
sort of freaked out. Frank is completely bonkers and seems to think he’s
completely stable. He has created his own mythology. I was worried I’d never be
able to sleep again, but I can, thankfully. The book was amazing. It was so
good. Awesome.
I was pleasantly surprised. I have seen the movie, and
I sort of worried I wouldn’t like the book, cause I don’t know, I’m awful. I
really liked the movie. I liked how completely oblivious and bitchy Holly could
be, and how beautifully kind and vulnerable she could be. If you haven’t seen
the film, or read the novel, it’s about a high-society girl named Holly
Golightly who lives in Manhattan. She spends her days with rich men, not really
working, or being a prostitute, I should point out, but just hanging out and getting money from them. She goes to prison
every Thursday to deliver a message to a mob boss, and then to deliver a
message to his lawyer, quite obviously related to some sort of crime, although Holly seems completely oblivious. She
spends most of her time drinking and looking for a husband among her high
society male friends. Her downstairs neighbour tells the story of how he met
her and how his friendship with her developed. She calls him “Fred” after her
brother, and no one actually mentions his name. Apparently he’s gay, but I
don’t know enough about gay slang in the 40s to have picked that up. I really
liked the book. I like Capote’s writing. I like Holly a lot, she’s an extremely
annoying brat, but she’s pragmatic and she’s very honest about what she wants.
I dislike “Fred” a little, I don’t know why exactly, he just seemed a bit
whiny. I liked him too, I just, he’s annoying. I really liked the book. Thumbs
up.
I’m not a touchy feely person, I don’t like sweet
happy romantic stories, because I’m a bitter, black-hearted bitch, I assume.
Luckily for me Pride and Prejudice is more pragmatic and not as sugar sweet. I
sort of instantly fell in love with how awesome Jane Austen is. Her writing is
hilarious. Lizzie is a lot of fun, and Darcy seems infuriatingly cool. I always
worry about reading classics, but this went well. Lizzie is infuriating, I got
really annoyed with how she wouldn’t realize that Darcy loves her. Spoiler
alert, in case you’ve never read it, although, worst kept secret of all time. I
really liked it. I liked it so much I’m worried. It’s nice to read something
and realizing what all the hype is about. I’m a convert, I think. Let’s not be
too cocky. Loved it.

I loved this book. It’s sort of a crime novel, except
there’s magic and ghosts and also sort of weirdness. I don’t usually like crime
novels, I don’t know why. I will watch crime TV shows until the cows go home,
but when I read crime novels I get extremely bored. Because I am a child, a
whiny 25-year-old child, I need something else. And while I found Peter a bit
annoying, and his type of character sort of bugs me in crime novels, for
absolutely no other reason than me being weird. I liked the concept of rivers
being people, or the other way around. I like the creepy vampires and the weird
ghost-y stuff. I liked Nightingale. I feel like some of the mythology was
missing, but it’s okay. I liked it though. Basically the book is about a young cop, Peter, who is called to the scene to work as manpower when a man is killed. According to a ghost, yes Peter is equally confused when a ghost talks to him, the man was killed because another man whacked his head off with a stick. Peter learns that magic and ghosts exist and he becomes part of the department in the police that works with ghosts, led by DCI Thomas Nightingale. Thumbs up.