The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
I have to admit this isn't the sort of book I'd normally read and it wasn't until a friend sat me down and forced me to watch the film that I got a real flavor for it. Within five mins of watching the film I was sending my boyfriend out to buy me the book.
As I said, this isn't the sort of book I'd normally go for so even after watching the film I was still a little skeptical but I was not disappointed. The book delivered all the film did and more. Firstly I think it's important to stress how easy to read it was. Its a novel designed for young adults and to me this usually screams cheap tacky love stories but this was nothing of the sort. And although there is a love story of sorts that runs through it it is so well written that I was convinced I was reading a book for adults. The only thing that gave it away was the simple writing style which is just what I wanted after a long day in uni!
As for the story I cant honestly say I found any flaws within it at all and you all know how picky I am with my reading. It's set in the future in a place that is split into districts and of course the capitol. The basic story line is about a yearly event called 'the hunger games' where a boy and a girl from each district are placed in an arena to battle to the death and as gruesome as it sounds (and parts of it are) it is such a brilliant, original story that I'd recommend it to anyone, young or old. I don't want to say too much more in regards to the story line as I refuse to spoil it for future readers but as a whole it flows very nicely.
The characters are well developed and despite me having seen the film I was still able to build my own imaginary world due to the amazing amount of extra detail they were unable to fit into the film. In fact the more I read I realised that the film had missed infinite amounts out which to be honest made me really happy as I felt that me as a reader of the book was getting that little bit extra than those who were just too lazy and only watched the film.
I would definitely tell every man and his dog to indulge in this read even if this isn't your usual sort of thing!
Im currently on with the second one "catching fire" (who's title makes perfect sense after reading the first book!) watch this space and "may the odds be ever in your favor"
Fifty Shades Darker
E.L. James
After the abrupt ending in fifty shades of Grey I refused to give up on it and wanted to know what would happen next between Ana and Christian as I think anyone who has read the book did! At the end of the first book my head was screaming NOOOO! because for some reason I didn't want to believe that that was it for the twisted couple.
Anyway, I digress, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a lot more than the first. I think that this is probably because it was more 'vanilla' and seemed like (call me a romantic but...) a proper love story.
I found the second book 'fifty shades darker' to be much better written and the story more coherent and gripping. I feel that as the characters had already been introduced the story could be developed more quickly and more action could be fitted into the story.
However, despite this being my favorite of the two books I would definitely suggest to any fifty shades virgins to read the first one first because all the revelations in the second book definitely need the basic information given in the first one to carry any weight.
If you have read fifty shades of grey you should definitely definitely carry on... I think that E. L. James has redeemed herself with this one, or maybe I just got too into the 'kinky fuckery' to notice her bad writing, either way, I'd say the book was good, very good in fact.
The Woman in Black
Susan Hill
After being utterly terrified by the film I decided to do something I don't ordinarily do and that was read the book. Normally I will read the book first and based on my opinion I decide whether to watch the film or not but for once I did it the other way round and this is not something I would choose to do again as I felt my experience of the book and its imprinting on my imagination was severely impaired by the images the film had already placed in my head.
Firstly I feel it important to address the story line of the book that much like the film chilled me and I instantly regretted reading the book at night! Although as I briefly mentioned I cannot state just how scary the book is after seeing the film due to my head already being filled with horrific images. I wont go too into depth in regards to the story line for those of you who have seen neither the book or the film but I will say that the stories are very similar - the film has not added much to the book nor taken much out. There is some obvious tweaking and a lot of the scarier parts of the film were not in the book but all the key points were there so I cant really complain. In fairness, from what I can conclude I would say the film is scarier than the book but if anyone read the book first I'd be happy to hear your opinions on the matter!
The book I have to say was very well written in a style of a classic Victorian ghost story and the author Susan Hill has been very clever, not only in the way she builds the story and the way the information unfolds but I would say her most impressive feat would be how she manages to write from a male perspective, something, when writing I often struggle to do however I digress. As I said, the book is well written, not the easiest of books I have ever read and I would not recommend it for anyone looking for a light read however it was by far no Dickens or Shakespeare, in fact I found it to be a happy medium between the two extremes and would recommend it to anyone who is wanting to branch out their reading experience into more classical styles of writing.
I have found it most difficult to either criticize or praise this book on much other than the ability of the author due to my previous experience with it in film form as I cannot tell whether the book merely stirred the images from the film or made new ones. Either way I definitely enjoyed reading it (although perhaps for my next ghostly review I'll read it during the day time) and I would very much like to see more of the psychological ghost story and plan on going to see the stage show. What a great, adaptable book!
His other lover
Lucy Dawson
Firstly I'd like to apologise for the delay between my last review and this one however I have had a very hectic weekend and plan/ hope on writing another review later this week to make up for this!
Now onto the review... I picked this ever so girly sounding book up in a charity shop for 50p cos I fancied a bit of a trashy read but I was actually more pleasantly surprised with this one than I thought I was going to be. I actually read the whole thing in one night as there was something about it that kept me gripped.
I wouldn't recommend this book if you want a more deep read but I'd say its a perfect, easy, summer read for chilling out with.
The story follows a woman who suspects her boyfriend of cheating and who will go to great lengths to find out what is going on. Some might consider it to be a little far fetched however I did enjoy the book and the story line. The book, like many of the others I have read recently, had a lot of interesting twists which actually left me very frustrated in the end. Although, having said this the way the book ended worked really well and despite my annoyance at it I really enjoyed it.
The writing was good, fluent and NOT REPETITIVE and like I said the book has lots of twists and doesn't give all away at once. It feeds to reader with little snippets at a time which is what kept me enthralled. Not the best book Ive ever read but by far not the worst.
I would definitely recommend this book to girls and maybe some boys who might think they're getting away with things ;)
Happy reading campers!
Cocktails for Three - Sophie Kinsella
This isn't a book I would usually go for, it looked a bit too plain for my liking but my mum recommended it so I thought I'd give it a go. And for this reason I apologise if my review is biased as the book was bigged up to be brilliant (much like 50 shades!).
I found it a little slow to get into and to get going, I mean I was already half way through before anything started to happen really, slightly disappointing. It was only a short book of around 300 pages that follows the story of three women in London. One moves to the country to have a baby, one is a travel editor always running off and the other is far too nice for her own good as we find out in the second half of the book once the story actually starts to develop.
As I read on I found the book to develop quite nicely and feature a few of the ever famous twists we all know and love in a good book. Some of these you could spot a mile off but others were a slight shock. Again I don't wish to spoil the book but wait until you find out who "Mr Married" is. Shocker! Or at least I thought so, perhaps Im just a bit slow sometimes though! And we all know we want to work for a big magazine in a big city and drink cocktails in a posh bar just like our Sex and The City ladies!
The book does examine a variety of lifestyles in third person, looking at each of the girls and each of their problems one by one, jumping from person to person which is what I would say makes the book work. It managed to keep me interested by keeping all the story lines running along side each other with familiar strings running through them all. As for this style I do have to say well done to Miss Kinsella!
I am a fan of Kinsella's writing after reading "Twenties Girl" last summer, which incidentally I found far more interesting than this novel however I digress. As I just said I do like Kinsella as an author but I felt this book had something lacking and a slightly too happy ending to conclude with. I mean, I hate it when a book leaves me blubbing but come on, not everything works out perfectly every time!
The writing itself was good and I was please to see there was no overuse of 'murmuring' in this book (Take a Hint E.L. James!)but by far it was not my fave book ever but it wasn't bad. Quite a nice, simple, easy, girly book perfect for chilling out in the sun with. Nothing too heavy but nothing too spectacular either. I'd say its worth getting for some summer reading seen as you can get it for as little as £1 online. Cheap and cheerful is definitely the phrase for this one.
Fifty Shades of Grey - E.L. James
Well firstly, I'm ashamed to say I jumped on this band wagon like the rest of the young girls in the country and I am still slightly bemused by the book. At around 500 pages it is somewhat a hefty novel focused around love, romance and to be fair, a substation about of filth. Which, lets be honest, is the main reason the book is a best seller cos I can promise it hasn't hit 20000000 sales on the clever writing style but do not despair it still has that page turning unable to put down quality we all crave in a book!
A part of me thinks the reason this book was such a big hit was because it was a gentle pathway into the world of erotic fiction. Somehow a buzz was created and as we all know, once a book is a best seller, it continues to sell. I believe that this is what happened here. I mean, EVERYONE is talking about it!
In all honesty this book got me hot under the collar a few times and in many ways Christian Grey (The main male protagonist) is the perfect gentleman, which is, in my opinion, makes him so DAMN SEXY! Feel free to disagree though. His character is painted slowly as is Ana's (the main female protagonist) but I felt that this help build the book. The story line is gripping, not your usual boy meets girl story by any means however I don't want to go into too much detail as Im sure it will be more fun for you to discover the twists and turns of the relationship that forms between Ana and Mr Grey at your own pace in your own mind. I will however mention that although this is a love story it is not for the faint hearted and readers should be expecting uncensored reading featuring hand cuffs and red rooms!
As for the actual writing of it I was less than impressed, I found that the author often used the same words over and over again. Sometimes this is fine but within the book I found they did not fit the characters and often were not character specific. The one that riled me the most was the use of the word 'murmur'. As James tries to create a high flying, powerful, domineering business man the image is ruined by the mere fact that he murmurs things his character should not be murmuring.
Despite this however I did enjoy the book, possibly because of the boundaries it openly breaks, my shameful attraction to the fictitious character of Mr Grey or perhaps the story line is just that gripping. Whatever it was that pulled me into this world has pulled me back onto Amazon to order book number two "Fifty Shades Darker" so watch this space.
This is me. This is my new blog. Basically I have set up this blog for something to do over the summer before I enter my third year at university. As Im sure many of you find it gets a bit dull over the summer when your studies cease and you suddenly have an abundance of time on your hands so I have decided to fill this spare time with reading a variety of books, both new and old, from a variety of genre's and then I hope to review them on here. Detailing not so much the story line (NO SPOILERS) but the quality of said story line, some of the highlights from the book, how pleasant it was to read among other details. I hope you enjoy :)
