February Wrap-up

Winter is over! Well, not quite because it's freezing outside, but it's the last day of February so it must be over soon. February is a shorter month and I also was away for a few days and couldn't read too much, but I still managed to read 6 books like last month. Or rather I should say that I finished 6 books because I made progress with a few others. I think that this month I read a lot more pages than in January so I'm really happy. I'm trying to finish at least one big book every month, but this is a newer resolution that I didn't have in January so I have to catch up soon. Here are the books I finished this month!

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Newlywed Grace Monroe doesn’t fit anyone’s expectations of a successful 1950s London socialite, least of all her own. When she receives an unexpected inheritance from a complete stranger, Madame Eva d’Orsey, Grace is drawn to uncover the identity of her mysterious benefactor.*

This is another historical fiction novel that has been on my 'to read' list for a few years. It was one of those books that I occasionally checked in sales and I finally bought it, without it being on sale, a couple of months ago. I liked it, wanted to love it, but didn't. I wouldn't call this a disappointment, yet I can't hope but feel that my expectations haven't been met. I don't want to give too many details about this book because mystery is part of it, but I found it a bit predictable at times. The perfume descriptions were quite nice and it had a nice period atmosphere, which made it a quick and pleasant read. One of my biggest problems was that I didn't really like the character of Grace, I found her quite spoiled and flat, nothing special. The other characters I quite enjoyed though. There's also a bit of romance in here if you are interested in that kind of stuff. I would have given it 3 and a half stars, but since there are no halves on Goodreads I rounded it up to 4 stars because I liked it more than my other 3 star reads.

Big Mama's Funeral by Gabriel García Márquez

The first short story collection of the month comes from one of my favorite writers. I am a huge García Márquez fan and have read almost all of his books. One that I hadn't read before is this collection of eight short stories from 1962, one of his early works that hasn't been available in my country until recently. I'm not very keen on short story collections and I've been known to leave some unfinished because I got bored, yet I've always enjoyed this author's short stories. I have two of his other collections in my library that I have read many times and enjoyed. It's probably because they are written in his amazing magical realism style that I love. What I don't like about short stories is that there is no time for the development of characters and the plot is more of a tiny scene that often leaves me unsatisfied. This, however, doesn't happen with García Márquez' stories because his style makes them more of an atmosphere piece and you don't really care about the plot, being distracted by the beautiful descriptions. Somehow he does manage to give the plots meaning also, which often leaves you puzzled and wanting to reread the story as soon as you finish it. For me his books are the escape from reality that no other fiction or fantasy book can give me. Naturally, I had to give this one 5 stars.

Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontë vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on "something real and unromantic as Monday morning." Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.*

This was by far my favorite read of the month. My history with Charlotte Bronte started in middle school, when I first forced myself to read Jane Eyre. It took me about a year to finish, I didn't like it and categorized it as a boring book. A few years ago I decided to give it another try and absolutely loved it. After that, I picked up the rest of Brontë's books, read Villette, which was also great and took a big break until now, when the classic mood hit me and made me try this one. It's a big book of over 600 pages and not quite easy to read, especially for a non-native speaker like me, yet I went through this quickly because it was amazing. There's a little bit of everything in here, from romance to politics, history and feminism. Charlotte Brontë's writing is incredible and her commentary is witty, funny and insightful. If you enjoyed Jane Eyre, you will probably love this but if you didn't you should still give this a try cause it might surprise you. 5 out of 5 stars for me.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna.*

Whenever I'm in the mood for reading YA, I go to my sister's bookshelf and pick something from there. I've been wanting to read this for a while and it also counted for Black History Month, plus it seemed like a cute and quick read. I ended up dragging it for over a week and only finished it because I wanted to have a sixth book finished by the end of the month. Otherwise, I would have probably struggled with it for another week or so. I know many people like this book but for me it was slow, predictable and boring at times. Although I enjoyed the writing style, the story was just not interesting to me. I often felt like I didn't care what was happening next and that's why I had to force myself to pick it up and read from it. I gave it 2.5 stars but rounded up to 3 on Goodreads because I enjoyed the writing style and I learned a few things about beekeeping that I didn't know.

Books not pictured that I also finished:

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks

Ok, so here comes a review that is probably biased. I am a huge fan of Tom Hanks and when I heard that he wrote a book I had to read it. Then I also found out that the audiobook was narrated by Tom Hanks himself, which made me immediately sign up for Audible just to get it. And then I listened to it in about 4 days and loved it. I realize that this book of short stories doesn't have huge value from a literary point of view and I'm also not a big reader of short stories, but I think that the fact that I enjoyed them makes them special. The stories are very different from each other, one recurring theme is the typewriter, hence the title of this collection. It seems that Tom Hanks himself wrote this book on a vintage typewriter. What I really love about these stories is how familiar they all feel. I felt like I knew these characters and that rarely happens in my experience with short stories. The fact that they were also narrated by one of my favorite actors made them even more special. I gave this 4 (maybe even 4.5) stars. 

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.*

I started this (pretty short) novel as an ebook on the first day of the year on my phone. Since I don't read much on my phone, I didn't make a lot of progress with it until I decided to download it to my ebook reader and finally finish it. This is supposed to be one of the first science fiction books ever written, but for me it was very disappointing. Except for two or three pages of (pretty questionable) science, the whole book seemed like a narration of a Laurel and Hardy movie to me. The only reason I finished it was because it was so short and I wanted to see where it ended up, needless to say I didn't enjoy the ending either. I gave this a generous rating of 2 stars, because it has the excuse that it's and old book and it tries to describe something that was probably hard to conceive back then. I still want to try some other H.G. Wells books in the hope of finding something I enjoy more, but this one was not for me.

So these are the books I managed to finish this month. I also made progress with the audiobook of The Count of Monte Cristo, a massive 50 hour listen that I'm about half way through. In terms of big books, I've read about two thirds of Steven King's Under the Dome and will finish it in March. I also started the audiobook of the first Harry Potter today because, believe it or not, I have never read those books in my life. So yeah, I love reading. Happy March!

*Source: Goodreads

January Wrap-up

Hello hello! It's the first of February, so it's time to make the first wrap-up of the year. January was a really great month for reading, probably because I had a lot of free time and was in the reading mood most of the time. I am very happy that I'm more than on track with my challenge. I read 6 books this month, which means I'm roughly one book ahead, although Goodreads is telling me it's 2. None of these books was massive, but some of them were pretty thick. I read half of them in Romanian and half in English, depending on how they were available to me. Let's see what they are!   

The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea by Bandi

The Accusation is a deeply moving and eye-opening work of fiction that paints a powerful portrait of life under the North Korean regime. Set during the period of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il’s leadership, the seven stories that make up The Accusation give voice to people living under this most bizarre and horrifying of dictatorships.*

This was the first book I finished this year, mainly because I was really curious about it and took a break from the other book I was reading to finish it in just about a day. When I first heard about this book I was quite intrigued and wanted to get it immediately. It' a book of short stories that was smuggled out of the country. The author is anonymous, Bandi is a pseudonym that means "firefly" in Korean. To be honest, I was really disappointed by this book. Yes, it has a lot of historical value and it teaches people about life in a totalitarian regime, especially if they have no idea about it, but the writing is not great at all. It's very simple and doesn't have literary value from my point of view. There were a few shocking moments in the book, even for somebody that lives in a previously communist country, like myself. The characters seem to accept their fate most of the time and at the same time have very dramatic reactions without trying to rebel against the regime. I guess this is a valuable read for many people and it's a really quick one, so you should give it a chance if you are interested in the subject. Compared to the other books I have previously read, I didn't like it and couldn't give it more than 3 stars. 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.*

I suppose this one needs no introduction. It's a huge bestseller with many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. I am a big fan of historical fiction, so it was on my list for ages and I finally got to it. I liked it a lot and gave it 4 stars. The writing style is great and even though it's broken off in short chapters, jumping through the different time periods and characters, it didn't feel broken and had a nice continuity to me. I feel that the pace is a bit slower throughout the book, without major events but rather important moments being described. A thing that is very important to me in a historical fiction book is the atmosphere and this book did a great job creating that. The characters are also great and you really feel like you know them by the end of the book. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is that I always compare my reads and I didn't like this as much as my 5 star reads. 

  

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

From prize-winning, bestselling author Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape.*

Another historical fiction and another Pulitzer Prize winner, this time the one from 2017. Again, I really liked this book, but it wasn't a favorite so I gave it 4 stars. I think it's very important to point out that this is a work of fiction with a historical setting, rather than a true account of historical events. For people like me, who don't know a lot about slavery and that time period in America, it's really had to know fiction from reality. Other than that, I liked the writing style and the character of Cora was really well built, although I feel like the other characters weren't. I guess the author wanted to focus on his main character and not so much on the rest. All in all, this was a really entertaining read for me, but I'm not sure if it actually taught me something about the true history of those times. 

 Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila, the two girls whom readers first met in My Brilliant Friend, have become women. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her abusive husband and now works as a common laborer. Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which have opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons.*

This is the 3rd part in the "Neapolitan Novels" series, also known as "My brilliant friend" ("L'amica geniale") series. Now here we are talking favorites. I had to give this 5 stars, even though I liked it a bit less than the first two parts. Nonetheless, it's still an amazing book. I read the first two parts last December and even though they have about 400 pages, I flew right through them. These books are so well written that any words of mine about them would not be praise enough. They are books written by a woman about women, but I don't think they are intended to be exclusively for women at all. The story is full of authenticity and the characters are so real that you really feel that you know them. The third book has less action than the first two and I feel it's more introspective, but I didn't get bored at all and actually am behind on sleep because I stayed up late every night to read it. I only have one book from this series left to read but I'm trying to postpone it so it doesn't end so quickly. Really great writing! 

The other two books that I read this month and don't have a picture of:

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally held to be the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th century and early 19th century. Thus, Castle, and Walpole by extension is arguably the forerunner to such authors as Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Daphne du Maurier, and Stephen King.*

I listened to this one as an audiobook and it was quite short, so it's another quick read. I'm trying to get more into Gothic novels this year, so I started with this one and also purchased The Monk and Dracula (which would be a re-read). This one was one of the first Gothic novels, being written in 1764 so it should be interpreted according to its period. Many people have rated it really low because of the cheap intrigue it contains, but I gave it 3 stars because I quite liked the writing style, which made it really great as an audiobook. I also found myself laughing quite often and I'm not sure if that's what the author intended, but a little amusement while reading a book can never hurt. All in all, I think it's good to read this if you are interested in the genre, especially to see the evolution of the Gothic novel and what people regarded as a bestseller at the time. 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.* 

I read this one in a paperback format in Romanian but forgot to take a picture before I gave it to my mom. I liked it back when I read it and gave it 4 stars. The reviews on Goodreads are very one sided, people either loved it or gave it one star, so it's really hard for me to not get influenced by what I read there. If i had to define this book with one word it would be "intense". For most of it I had the impression that somebody was shouting it at me in a very quick pace. So yeah, the title is quite fitting. There are parts of this book that are incredibly touching and others that seem fake or just nonsense. I'm not a fan of gimmicks like pictures or empty pages in books, so that's why I couldn't give this 5 stars. If you are in the mood for an easy read that has also a bit of meaning go for it. 

I'm really happy with my January reading month. Hopefully the next ones will be just as good and I will meet my goal at the end of the year. I also started another audiobook, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, which is very long and will take me ages to listen to, and an e-book of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells that I'm reading on my phone so only sporadically. I think it's important to have options so you can do your reading while out and about or while doing your house work. And now it's time to pick my first read of February. Hope it's a good one!

*Source: Goodreads