Hey guys!
I hate not posting a text post for ages on this blog, because I don’t want new followers (HI!) to think that I don’t ever post them.. Because I do! I haven’t actually posted a review in a while because I’m in the middle of reading A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I am reading one of these a day because they’re so short and posting a review of each book would be pointless, so I’m just going to review the series as a whole. I’ve been buying them second hand (seeing as I never actually owned them as a child - I read them in the library at school). I’ve bought them in the wrong order so I wouldn’t be able to skip certain ones and it would control me reading them to a certain extent. I didn’t want to read the first few and then not finish the series for months. I’m on number seven now, The Vile Village. Yesterday I bought that one and number nine, The Carnivorous Carnival.

This is a particularly sensitive issue for me because it also happened to be yesterday where I saw the Lauren Conrad book box video, in which she sliced these precious books to pieces. If you haven’t seen it read about it here and here (the second one is funniest but the first is more up to date). I literally watched the video with my hand over my mouth, it was so mindless and.. stupid. If you want your shelf to look like it has books on it.. put books on it. No storage space is unique. Storage space is a synonym for a box. Lauren Conrad will just have to deal with that. Poor Lemony.

I’m overly concious of the fact that I’ve hardly posted a text post in a good while now, so I thought I would talk about something shocking I discovered in my life.
I set up a goodreads account a few years ago and really never bothered to use it until for some reason recently it seemed like a good idea. So in June I logged in, rated some more books and added some more to my to read list and then logged back out again only to return yesterday. 
For the past three and a half years, since January 2009, I’ve kept a journal, or a list of all the books I’ve read. Mostly because I like notebooks and this was an excuse to have one, but also mostly because I like to keep track of things. To my amazement (and also slightly to my horror) I discovered that I’ve read over 170 books in the past three and a half years. That’s just under a book a week for three and a half years. I didn’t mean to do this. I’m still really shocked by it, because I just didn’t expect to have read that much. Yeah, I knew it was a fair amount of books, each year took up at least two pages, but I just didn’t think I would be able to allocate one book to each year of my life for the past three years. 
Having said that, there were months were I didn’t finish a book at all, and then months when I read eight or nine books. It scares me a little bit, when I think about all the time I’ve spent reading, and I didn’t even notice. Yes, I am always reading something, and I’ve two full shelves of unread books out of ten in my room at the moment. I try to keep those shelves as balanced as possible, try to keep certain genres in stock at least, so that I never think “Oh I’d love to read a fantasy novel right now” and then I can’t. Most of the time, if I’m in the mood to read a certain kind of book, I can. So I suppose that would be a good thing to but that much reading down to. But I still cannot even fathom how I still had time to go to school and college after reading that much. I’m not complaining though.

Anyway, here’s my goodreads account, please add me, I have no friends.

I’m going to be MIA for the next few days. This means it’s highly unlikely I will be posting any reviews, although my queue is all queued up so quotes will still be posted.

In other news, I’m on book three of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and I love them so much. I think the style of Lemony Snicket is perfect, especially as a children’s author. It is so complex at times, yet he explains the difficult words so that it’s not only understood but also humorous. I could read him forever. (Also the hyperbole in those novels is unbelievably funny.)

Anyway, I’ll be doing a super-review thing of them when I’m done, though I doubt I’ll get too much time over the next few days.

With all due respect, 
Ailish.

 

Truth Be Told - A Book Review

A few weeks ago I was sent a message by the very nice Tom Williams, asking me to read and review his book, Truth Be Told. I’m always up to read a new book, so I was more than happy to do this. To be honest, I had never heard of him before (here’s his tumblr!) and I really wasn’t expecting much from it. This opinion changed as soon as I opened it, when I saw it began with an Oscar Wilde quote “the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple”. I’ve always had a soft spot for little Oscar and that quote just so happens to be one of my favourite Wilde quotes. So when I saw that, my outlook for the novel was a good bit more positive, and it stayed that way.

So a basic outline of this book is as follows: This dude named Jack gets dumped by his long-term girlfriend Lisa, who as it turns out has been sleeping with some other guy for the past six months. NBD. So Jack has had the carpet pulled from under him and now lives a life of misery and woe.. Sort of. He basically just wants to prove to Lisa that he doesn’t need her and that he’s happy without her, even if in reality he’s trying to prove a lie. So anyway, he rocks off to this speed dating thing, and decides to pretend to be someone different, a Scottish boy named Gordon (I fucking hate that name). He changes his appearance, his accent and his story. And yes, you’ve guessed it, while speed dating, he meets somebody. Somebody named Isabella. Gordon decides to not tell her that he is not Gordon but in fact Jack. You can imagine how this train wreck waiting to happen ends up.

For some reason, the tone of the book, the style of writing reminded me of One Day by David Nicholls, except with, you know, a plot (upon tumblr-stalking -I’m joking, just a casual look- Tom I discovered that One Day is one of his favourite books, so I’m sure this will both offend and please him. I’m leaving it in anyway because it’s the truth to me and in my opinion the compliment to him outweighs the insult to his favourite book). The opening of the book, I found to be very sad and bitter. I felt I could relate a lot to this. I want to point out that I tend to become emotionally involved in things, especially when I feel like I’m similar to any of the characters. I had gone through a really bad break-up in the past few months, so obviously Jack and I had that little connection. I knew how he felt when he wanted to go out and show Lisa that he was doing fine without her and having a great time. I did the same, by cutting off all of my hair (something which, like Jack, I now regret). The whole break-up and then finding a “new love” was something I could really relate to, and to be honest, in a way this book gave me confidence that what I did in my situation is right, is normal and is totally okay. I knew this already, but this helped me to be sure of it.

One of the other things I really like about this story is that it all seems like such a genuine mistake. It was just a joke that got way too out of hand. At no point did I feel like Jack was an asshole, and this is coming from someone who will actively hate characters in books. Jack was likeable. Maybe that’s because I felt I could relate to him, maybe he was just a nice guy, I don’t know.

Seeing as the title of the book is Truth Be Told, it’s the truth that I will tell; I had got a bit of a problem with two things in this novel. One of these was the language, which I found to be unnecessarily wordy at times, especially during dialogue. I just kept thinking that there was no way someone would speak like that aloud, using that many words, which is something that is generally confined to writing, people just get carried away. Don’t get me wrong, at times the writing was really beautiful, it’s just that sometimes I had to read a sentence twice to make sure I actually understood what it was that was being said.

My second and final problem was with the ending. For those of you who have read it, click read more. For those of you who haven’t, don’t.

All in all, this book was a pretty good read. I felt particularly attached to it because of my situation and I really enjoyed reading it. I also think the author shows a lot of potential as an writer.

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Lucas - A Book Review

I must have bought this book about two summers ago, back when discount bookshops first opened in my city. Every Sunday, after I would babysit I would go into town and then buy some books. Usually three for two Euro. Which is mainly why I have two shelves of unread books, that and I can’t stop buying them no matter what the price.
Anyway, so Lucas by Kevin Brooks was one of them. I’d never heard of it before, never heard of the author. But I bought it because it was cheap, it was there and I was looking for something to read. At the time, I started to read it but never actually got past the first chapter (the beginning of the novel is pretty slow and uninteresting, it must be said). When I went away recently, I brought it with me. It’s classified as a children’s book. I figured it would make for pretty light reading, it wouldn’t be too heavy or intense. I was wrong. 

Basically the story goes like this, Cait lives on an small island with her dad (who’s a children’s author) and her brother comes back from college during the summer. She’s fifteen. One day, she sees a strange boy walking along the beach, there’s a whole “he stared into my soul” fiasco and lo and behold, there’s Lucas. For ages during the book I assumed Lucas was a fairy, or elf, or something. I assumed he was magic (though after finishing it I don’t think that’s true at all). After this moment however, the storyline goes of the rails and ends up as one big train-wreck. Lucas is an outcast on the tiny island and the islanders do not take too kindly to him at all. Let me just say there are some very sick-minded individuals in this book.

This book is severely underrated. It’s absolutely fantastic; brilliant, strong characters and a great plot. I also think it flows excellently and the chapter breaks are in perfect positions. Moral of the story is don’t judge and be nice to each other, and also, read this book.

Jane Eyre - A Book Review

Last September, Jane Eyre was one of the novels we were supposed to read for an English module and then write an essay on it. I never finished it and only got about half-way through due to a) time constraints and b) not caring about Jane. But it was always left on my “unread” shelf, until about two weeks ago after I finished Pride and Prejudice I decided to take Jane back and give our relationship a second chance. Which I’m really glad I did.

I almost hate to admit it, but I really liked this book. It’s such a vast book, it’s hard to imagine that it’s the same Jane who is locked in the Red Room at the beginning of the book to the Jane who is marrying someone whose wife is locked in her own room at the end of the novel. Because of this, I don’t think it’s a book that you should read like a “normal” book. Jane Eyre is Jane’s autobiography. It’s the story of her entire life, and while you shouldn’t take a lifetime to read it, you should really give yourself a good few months to read it. Take a break from it every now and then and I think you’ll be rewarded for it.

What I liked in particular about this book was that the story wasn’t a love story, unlike most other novels of its time that I’ve read (the one that comes to mind most significantly is Wuthering Heights). Obviously the last twenty chapters are dedicated to Mr Rochester and his antics, but Jane was able to do without him. She had her school, she had her own life. Yes she went back, but that was her choice, really (to be honest, I would have too, St. John was a total creep). I liked it. She was independent, always had been and always would be.

It was also one of the only books that I actually enjoyed the final chapter. I really liked it. It was all tied up so well, in my opinion. I felt good after it. All in all, Jane Eyre is definitely a book I would recommend, it’s very good. Besides, Jane is the ultimate mad bitch.

Only a few chapters of Jane Eyre left to go, THANK CHRIST! Also, managed to get another of A Series of Unfortunate Events today for €2 in a second-hand bookshop, the collection is nearly complete. I also bought two more books. I have a problem.

I like holidays.