Book Buying Ban is going well...
When I first started by blog I bought 3 books from my list and thought they’ll keep me going. And slowly I’ve accumulated more and more to the point where I have a pretty nice looking TBR pile on my desk. But when one’s on holiday, one accumulates books. I thought I was pretty good on this holiday in particular as I actually only paid for two of these myself. I have a friend who I was staying with a the time and she was having a clear out of all her old books. Three of which I just happened to want to read. So those jumped into my suitcase but then we went shopping when she stayed with me and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity of buying new books. These are what I picked up on my holiday.
1. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they’re off to university and Wren’s decided she doesn’t want to be one half of a pair anymore. She wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It’s not so easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fan fiction she writes where there’s romance far more intense than anything she’s experienced in real life.
Now Cath has to decide whether she’s ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she’s realising that there’s more to learn about love than she ever thought possible.
I’ve loved the premise of this book since it was released. There was just a lot of hype around it and I was worried that it wouldn’t live up to the expectation that you bought into. So when my friend said she had this book I jumped at the chance to read it. I know that Rowell’s work is well loved and I hope that I can add her to my list of favoured authors and continue to buy more of her books. I also really like the fact that the twins names when stitched together make Catherine. Just a little thing that made me smile when I saw it.
Good reads readers have given this book a 4.2 out of 5 stars.
2. Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green and David Levithan
One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers cross paths. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lived going in new and unexpected directions, culminating in heroic turns-of-heart and the most epic musical ever to grace the high school stage.
Now I love a good John Green book. I loved both Looking for Alaska and The Fault in our Stars but I’ve heard mixed things about this book. Really, I think my nervousness to read this comes from the fact that it’s written by two authors. Now I’ve never read any of David Levithan’s work, although I want to, and it seems like a strange way to go about writing a book, with two different people. I suppose however that it must work as neither of the characters are alike, supposedly. However for now it joins the pile to be read at some point in the future.
Good reads readers gave this book a 3.9 out of 5 stars.
3. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl:
they’ll shoot me I don’t care they’ll shoot me in the back of the neck I don’t care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck I don’t care down with big brother.
He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down the pen. The next moment he started violently. There was a knocking at the door.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is the first of two books that are on my reading list that I bought. It’s one of those that people read for English class in sixth form and do coursework on, or they study it for exams sometimes. I’ve just always been intrigued by it’s story and I’ve always been a huge lover of dystopian fiction. The fact that it is also written before 1984, about what would be in place by 1984 is something quite interesting to read. This is what Orwell deemed the world would be like, but in fact we are getting closer to that kind of world now. I just feel like although this is literature, and fantasy, that it must have some element of underlying truth.
Good reads readers gave this book a 4.1 out of 5 stars.
4. One Night, Markovitch - Aylet Gundar-Goshen
Two men - Yaacov Markovitch, perennially unlucky in love, and Zeev Feinberg, virile owner of a lustrous moustache - are crossing the sea to marry women they have never met. They will rescue them from a Europe on the brink of catastrophe, bring them to the Jewish homeland and go their separate ways.
But when Markovitch is paired with the beautiful Bella he vows to make her love him at any cost, setting in motion events that will change their lives in the most unexpected and heartbreaking of ways.
I came across this book not so long ago on the Waterstone’s website. It seems to be pretty hands down my kind of book. It has all sorts of romance but also a sense of intrigue and danger. It also sounds like both of these lead characters will be funny and/or at the very least likeable. I can’t wait to get started reading this, because other than the blurb, I’ve not heard much more about this novel.
Good reads readers gave this book a 3.9 out of 5 stars
5. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
Rosemary doesn’t talk very much, and about certain things she’s silent. She had a sister, Fern, her whirlwind other half, who vanished from her life in circumstances she wishes she could forget. And it’s been ten years since she last saw her beloved older brother Lowell.
Now at college, Rosemary starts to see that she can’t go forward without going back, back to the time when, aged five, she was sent away from home to her grandparents and returned to find Fern gone.
This is the second book from my book list that I picked up on my holiday. I wasn’t looking to buy a book when I was in Trafalgar Square, meaning to just look around the gallery’s and enjoy the feeling of being back in busy and bustling London. However there was actually a festival on so we decided to try and find somewhere a little bit quieter until we got our bearings. Waterstones was a good plan for us. It was in here my friend pointed out a particular youtube personality who I watch frequently, and so then it was very obvious that I had to buy a book just so I could talk to them. Following this encounter I was very giddy for the rest of the day which made up for the appalling opera we attended.
But yes, this contemporary novel won the Pen/Falkner award for fiction in 2014 and I’ve heard many a good thing about it. Apparently it’s got a good twist half way through and it’s not actually all that long; about 370 ish pages. So I’m planning to speed through this one.
Good reads readers gave this book a 3.8 out of 5 stars
So it’s safe to say that on top of this I’ve got a lot of reading to get done before the 21st of September when I start my university degree.
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