I read
quite a lot, and pretty big books, this month. It was fun. A lot of different
books, historical fiction, urban fantasy, fantasy, sci-fi and graphic novels,
and it was fun. Now I will move onto June and more humongous books, because, I don’t
know. All the books I want to read are huge for some reason.
So this
is the story of Grace Marks, the most notorious woman in Canada in the
mid-1800s. She was imprisoned as an accessory to the murder of the man she worked
for, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. The other servant,
James McDermott, killed them, and according to Grace, threatened to kill her
unless she joined him. They ran off, but were caught, and imprisoned. Because
of circumstances, her youth and beauty, and whether or not she was actually
aware, Grace wasn’t hanged like McDermott, but put in jail. The book tells her
story, from her perspective, as she tells her story to a young psychiatrist who
has been hired to find out whether or not she’s guilty, as she claims she can’t
remember the murders, or her involvement. The story is told through her story,
Doctor Jordan’s thoughts and story, and through letters sent between Jordan and
friends, and from notes from the trial and interrogations. It was interesting
to see the story from Grace’s point of view and to see Doctor Jordan trying to
figure out whether she is lying, whether she’s much smarter than she seems and
is actually playing him, or if she is insane. I still have no clue, she might
have just played everyone. I liked it though. Also it’s based on a true story,
which is fun.
This is a
book about a young man named Nathan who is a witch. He is half-black,
half-white. Which has nothing to do with his skin colour, but good or evil. His
mother was a white witch (“good”) and his father is black (“evil”). He is
raised by his grandmother and his half-siblings in England. He has to go to
assessments where it’s decided whether or not he is black. The book is leading
up to Nathan’s 17th birthday when he is to be given gifts and blood
by his grandmother, or another person with blood from his family, like his evil
dad, and he’ll become a real witch. Obviously Nathan’s sort-of evilness makes
it key that he is kept away from his dad, but Nathan is getting more and more
disillusioned with the supposedly good witches. I liked the beginning, when it
was sort of crazy and weird, but the pacing was a bit off, and sometimes I
wasn’t entirely sure if I actually cared about Nathan. Something about it just
bugged me, but mainly the pacing. The world-building was pretty okay actually,
but Nathan, and the other characters, pissed me off. I think it was pretty good
as far as how you feel about “good” and “evil” at the end, and how they’re played
off against each other, but yeah. Not sure if I’ll read the second book.
Vonnegut
is amazing, and weird, and just absurd. This book is about the children of one
of the fathers of the Atomic bomb, Felix Hoenikker. It’s set a while after the
second world war. A man, who calls himself Jonah, is planning to write a book
about Hoenikker. He reaches out to his children, Newt, Angela and Franklin, who
respond to a certain extent. He also finds people Hoenikker worked with and
communicated with. He learns that Hoenikker was working on something called
ice-nine which instantly turns any liquid to ice, including the liquid in
people. The book is sort of absurd and weird, it tells the story of Jonah
learning about Hoenikker and a religion Vonnegut invented, called Bokononism,
and explores the idea of power and religion and it’s just really weird and I
really liked it.
This is
the second book in the Wicked Years. The story of the land of Oz. The book is
about what happened in Oz after Elphaba dies. About 10 years after Elphaba dies
a young man is found mauled in the wilderness and is brought to a mauntery
(convent) and is brought back to life by a young novice named Candle. The boy
is Liir, companion of the Wicked Witch, and maybe her son? While Liir is in a
coma he dreams about how his life was up to his attack, and how he never really
knew who he was, is he actually the Witch’s son? He spent a lot of time looking
for Fiyero’s daughter, his possible half-sister, Nor. He then wakes up and
along with Candle that he should go to the Conference of Birds, because there’s
political revolt, and a new Emperor and there’s a lot of action. I liked it,
the pacing was a little odd, but I quite liked it. I also have the third book,
so I guess I’ll get round to reading that at some point.
It’s so GOOD!
Oh my God. Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles and it is based on
Rapunzel. It’s been a while since I’ve read Rapunzel, but I feel like it stayed
pretty true to the story of Rapunzel. We catch up with our merry travellers
Cinder, Carswell Thorne, Wolf and Scarlet as they make contact with Cress,
who’s been trapped in a satellite most of her life. She’s lunar and has been
gathering intel on earth. She is fascinated by Thorne and Cinder. She is a
little bit insane, which is natural, she’s been isolated for most of her life
and she sees herself as a damsel in distress and is waiting for her prince
(Thorne) to save her. Cress is sort of delightfully crazy. I thought the other
characters’ stories were interesting and moving the plot forward. The change of
perspective was just flawless and great. I didn’t mind, ever. I loved that we
got to see a bit of Luna, and I am excited for the crazy in Winter.
Didn’t
actually finish Sophie’s World because honestly it’s pissing me off for
absolutely ridiculous reasons that has to do with me being irrational, and not
necessarily the book. Anyway, I’m pushing it to June, I’ll finish it, I shall
force myself to read it. That always
works, she said sarcastically. So I’ll push it to June.
These
books are so good. I love them so much. There are things that I feel like
should bug me, there’s a change in perspective that normally would piss me off,
but I really couldn’t care less. This is the second book in the Necromancer
series. I hope there are more but I have no idea. In the first book *SPOILERS*
Sam defeats Douglas and takes up his place on the council. In this book we get
to see more of the day to day of being the necromancer on the Seattle council
and how to run the house he now lives in. There’s also this danger lurking.
Someone is killed by a person the other supernatural creatures can’t smell, and
Sam can’t get in touch with the dead person. And there are people threatening
Sam’s family. I love it so much. It’s snarky, it’s full of humour, and I don’t
care about the things that should bug me. They’re so GOOD! I’m excited.
Because I
have no self control and I don’t know, I couldn’t remember how the story had
started I read the entire Season 8 of Buffy in two days. Season 8 is the
graphic novel continuation of the TV-show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love
Buffy, so much, so much. I was always sad it ended, although I know why, it’s
not exactly high art. I really loved it though. What I like about the graphic
novel is that it’s written by Joss Whedon so the dialogue is very similar to
the TV-show, and it has a very Buffy feel, which sounds weird, but Buffy the TV-show
is very unique and weird and it translates to the comic books. The story starts
after the seventh season and all the potentials have become slayers with all
the good and bad that leads to. Dawn banged a Thricewise and has become a
giant, then a centaur, then a doll. Willow has a teacher/girlfriend who isn’t
Kennedy. Xander is a good leader, Giles and Faith are doing fun things. Dracula
returns, which is flippin’ great. And there’s a big bad named Twilight. I
really like it. I know some people don’t, but I like it. There are really great
wow moments and there are moments that made me cry, and there’s so much
awesome. I’ll have to start reading Season nine eventually. It’ll be good. Fun.
As far as
my resolutions go I’ve read a lot of graphic novels this month, so that
resolution is looking pretty good. I didn’t finish any classics, I’m an idiot.
I also didn’t finish any Norwegian books because the Norwegian book I was
reading annoyed me, but I’ll finish it. I finished one book for my Mount TBR,
but I’m still on track there, as I’m up to 15. Reading the graphic novels put
me up to 37 books, so I’m good for my 70 books challenge too. Happy days.
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Cress by Marissa Meyer
Sofies Verden by Jostein Gaarder