I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me

I had such high hopes for Joan Rivers new book I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me.  Not in the 'this will be amazing' way but in the 'this will take a day to read and be totally trashy and I will love it' way.

 

Unfortunately, after the novelty wore off, I was bored to tears and struggled to make it to the end.  I think the problem lies in how the book is set up.  It's comprised of chapters set to different topics and then within the chapters are numerous sentences that begin with "I hate so and so and why..." and only a few are really funny.  I think that I Hate Everyone... should have been condensed into the type of read you'd find in the humour section of Watersones: a small book with only one of Joan's rants per page.  Then maybe the whole thing would of had some of that bite that I've come to expect from watching Joan on Fashion Police.
     I feel bad for not liking this book.  Yet, alas, after the first three chapters of the same thing, over and over and over again, I realised that I was extremely glad I didn't pay nearly £13 for a copy, as I think it would have ended up straight in the charity shop bag.  Thanks library for helping me dodge a bullet!

Christmas Haul

Yes, this blog post about my bookish Christmas gifts is about 3 weeks late!  There is a reason for this tardiness:  I normally go away with my family for Christmas and New Years.  This means our present opening is delayed until the Sunday after we return.   This year, I was taken aback to see that I had received quite a few books that had been on my TTT list and had some great surprises to open too!  So, a big thanks has to go out to my Santas this year!

Divergent

This is the blurb on the back of my copy:

One choice decides your friends.

One choice defines your beliefs.

One choice determines your loyalties - forever.

One choice can transform you.

Bit vague, huh?  For those wanting a bit more info, here's the blurb from waterstones.com:

She turns to the future in a world that's falling apart. For sixteen-year-old Tris, the world changes in a heartbeat when she is forced to make a terrible choice. Turning her back on her family, Tris ventures out, alone, determined to find out where she truly belongs. Shocked by the brutality of her new life, Tris can trust no one. And yet she is drawn to a boy who seems to both threaten and protect her. The hardest choices may yet lie ahead...A debut novel that will leave you breathless.

 

 

It has been a week since I finished reading Divergent.  I tried to hold off writing a review straight away as I instantly came away thinking that not a lot happened story-wise.  However, if this had been true, I wouldn't have felt so compelled to keep on reading Veronica Roth's dystopian YA novel.  While Divergent could never be compared to the works of speculation fiction genius Margaret Atwood ( but then I wasn't looking for another Onyx and Crake, I was looking for a end of holiday read), it had a good momentum and interesting characters.  The first in a planned trilogy, it suffers slightly from having to build a world, so very different to our own, with so many rules, but is a great introduction nonetheless.

What stood out for me, and what was ultimately gratifying, was that Tris wasn't a typical YA narrator.  She wasn't perfect, or helpless and she wasn't unaware of her stunning beauty, waiting for a boy to notice this and save her from the big bad evil world.  Tris has plenty of major flaws, her pride and selfishness to name only two, and I liked how Roth explored this young girl's desire to do not only the right thing, but what was also in her best interests.  Of course there was the obligatory romance, but I'll let it slide as it wasn't love at first sight.  Roth aptly decided that this romance, and the feelings of her two characters, would be shown through their actions rather than just told through their exclamations and thoughts of all conquering love.

I've already ordered Insurgent from the library and I'm hoping that now all the introductions are out of the way, and the characters have been established, that there will be a stronger storyline in place and that the series reaches its full potential. 

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals For 2013

I've missed the last three Top Ten Tuesdays in a row, which are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, but I'm back on blog updating track and determined not to include Chuck Wendig on this list!  That aim should be easy to accomplish this week, as the topic is all about my bookish goals for 2013.

1. Stop ordering so many books from the library.  I've already been on an ordering binge, and it's good to support your local library, but I need to limit how many books I reserve each month in order for me to achieve goal no.2.

2. Read more books from our own bookshelves.  I have about 15 books that I have bought over the last two years that haven't been read because of my library addiction.  This is the year that I will read and conquer!  Also, I plan to read all the interesting looking supernatural anthologies that my mum owns before she passes them on to make more room! 

3. Update blog at least three times a week.  Last year I managed to update my blog more than I did in 2011 (with 90 posts compared to 38), and I want the same for this year.  I'm not going to be strict with this goal, as life always throws up surprises, but if I had around 150-160 posts by the end of the year I'd be happy.

4. Purchase more books from independent shops.  This was one of my goals for last year, but I arrived home after my Christmas holiday to find that my town's only non-second hand bookstore was closing!  It was back to Waterstones, who I was becoming increasingly dis-satisfied with, especially after they depleted their Horror and Paranormal sections and only seemed to stock 50 Shades of Grey  (I walked in one day and I kid you not, there was at least four areas in the shop of which the series could be found.  I know it was popular and got people to actually buy a book again, but just please...one shelf would have been enough!).  However, sometime in the spring/summer a new, independent, books/stationary store popped up exactly where the old one used to be.  I fully intend to spend my book voucher/money there this year, while also purchasing books from the two excellent secondhand book sellers we have in town.

5. Try to read and finish a book on my KindleFire.  I'm still not sold on the whole e-reader thing.  While I've managed about 100 pages before, I think this has to be the year that I get with the times and read a novel entirely via my Kindle. 

6. Find a YA with absolutely no romance!  I'll be the first to admit that I have, in the past, been a YA book snob.  While there are exceptions to this rule, and indeed my snobbery subsided in 2012, my main problem with YA was that it was too soppy.  The girl was always mooning over two boys that she had just met and couldn't quite decide which one loved her more.  This post on instalove by Christina over at A Reader of Fictions pretty much sums up everything that I hated about the Young Adult fiction I had been reading.  Therefore, this year my quest is to find books without any romance and then tally them up at the end of the year and perhaps create a fancy pants graph and maybe a 'no-ro' button.

7. Embrace the book blogging community and comment on other people's blogs more.  I'm shy in real life, and I'm just as shy on the Internet.  I say or type things and they come out wrong but you know what, as long as it's not mean or spam, who cares?  I started doing Top Ten Tuesdays at the end of last year as a way to find out what other bloggers were up to and through it I've found some great blogs and had some nice comments, too. 

8. Recommend books to friends, and don't be afraid to lend them to friends.   A friend has lent me two books.  She lent them to me in October and I still haven't read them.  I am going to read them this month, but I'd love to lend her some of the books that I've read as I think she'd rather enjoy them.  Only problem is, the majority of my books come from the library!  Hence, this goal is really about buying more books...any excuse, I know! 

9. Do something on World Book Night.  I wish that I had been a giver on World Book Night last year, but I couldn't think of a good place to give them out to put on my application form  (Annoyingly, I was travelling to Norwich that evening, so I could have easily left them as a trail of breadcrumbs on my journey - if only I was psychic!).  This year I'm not as passionate about any of the books being given so I've not applied but I'd still like to attend an event or maybe on second thoughts I'll just apply...

10. Read more.  I read just over a hundred books in 2012, and I could have read more if I cut down on my 'staring into space' time.  Also, if I read more, I can get more books out of the library without feeling guilty!



So that's my long-winded list of goals and reasonings for 2013, what are yours?

Lost Souls

At a club in Missing Mile, just outside New Orleans, the children of the night gather.  They dress in black and they're looking for acceptance.  There's Ghost, who sees what others do not; Ann, looking for love; and Jason, whose real name is Nothing, seeking the deathless truth about his father - and himself.
  But into Missing Mile tonight come three beautiful, hip vagabonds.  They are on their own lost journey, slaking their ancient thirst for blood, aching for supple young flesh.
  They find it in Nothing and Ann.  Now Ghost must pursue them all to save Ann from her new friends, to save Nothing from himself.


When telling my Mum about this book she was sure she had read it.  However, upon reading the blurb to her she was all, "that's not what my copy said...and mine had a green cover', which is to be expected when the book is about 20-years-old.  When I started reading Lost Souls I realised that both the blurb and the cover had been re-done to appeal to a Twilight obsessed market looking for their next fix of those lovable people of the night.  The problem with this is that Lost Souls is most certainly not Twilight.  Poppy Z. Brite's book is dark and twisty to the extreme, and most certainly an adult read where anything (and I am not using that word lightly...) goes.  It has shades of Interview with the Vampire, not just because of it's partial New Orleans setting, but with it's non romanticised concept of what a vampire truly is. 

I'll be the first to admit that I was disturbed by some of the content.  Nonetheless, I couldn't stop reading this book.  I did wonder if Brite wanted her story to be as offensive as possible, to get a rise out of her readers, but then I'm always complaining that all vampire stories have merged into one huge sparkly love fest.  It was nice that behind all this sometimes heinous activity, there was complexity and interesting discussion points; the standout being only a few lines with Ghost's musings on, and if you can even define, what is evil.  I'm not sure I would read it again, even if I did enjoy the ride, but it did help me realise that maybe I have been reading books that have been written in the wrong decade.  Obviously, pre-noughties is the way to go for original vampire fiction.

Happy New Year!

So, I'm back!  Naughty me as I didn't post anything for the last half of December, but I have a goodish reason...Firstly, the week prior to Christmas, I was round my boyfriend's house and things worked out that I didn't manage to get any computer access while I was there and then for the past 11 days I've been on holiday.  Hence all my time had to be used going on roller coasters, being a sorcerer of the Magic Kingdom and exploring The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. 

Some book things were accomplished...eventually.  Just before I went I read Poppy Z. Brite's vampire tale, Lost Souls, and while away I did manage to read Mockingbird, Chuck Wendig's superb - if slightly inferior -sequel to Blackbirds, which I will get around to reviewing sometime this week or next. Also, as part of my MIB:Alien Attack winnings, I got a copy of Veronica Roth's Divergent after seeing the sequel, Insurgent, on so many 'I want to read this book in 2013' lists and a copy of Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry.

So did everyone else have a good time over the holidays?  And did you receive any of the books that were on your Top Ten Tuesday list?  I hope you did, and that you have a prosperous reading year in 2013!





















P.S....while looking for Community season 3 DVDs and failing, I found something else...

My Life a Pancake Top Books of 2012

For me, 2012 was a great and varied year of reading.  The list bellow are all the books I gave 5* to on goodreads, which I thought was the fairest way of compiling this list.  In no particular order, here are my top ten books I read in 2012:

Nothing to Envy

 

The Killing Place

 

When She Woke

 

 

 

Hell Train

 

 

We Need To Talk About Kevin

 

 

 Atonement

 vN - Madeline Ashby

 

 

Blackbirds - Chuck Wendig
 

 

Mockingbird - Chuck Wendig

Of course, if I had included my 4* also, this list would have gone on forever!  But, if you want to know which other books narrowly missed out being on this year wrap up, have a look here.