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Monday, 29 April 2013

Elegance | Kathleen Tessaro | Review

Louise Canova is stuck in a rut. 30-year-old Louise is sick of her dull marriage, sick of being fat, sick of her wardrobe and sick of her life. On the brink of a mid-life existential crisis, she finds a book, not just any book…a book that may solve all of her problems.

That book is an encyclopedia, written by French fashion expert Madame Dariaux, called 'Elegance' and it becomes Louise’s manual for transformation into the Audrey Hepburn/Jackie O/Grace Kelly figure she always wanted to be.

Through the A-Z pages we follow Louise’s ‘transformation’, flashing back to significant moments in her life, her struggles to follow the guide and the consequences and price of changing everything about herself.

So what’s my verdict?

It’s no surprise that I picked up this book. The premise of someone transforming themselves by improving their style and pose is something I’m a sucker for no matter what the medium. But Louise’s transformation certainly isn’t easy. She hurts both herself and those around herself, yet still stands by the book and everything it preaches. She does come to her senses towards the end and like every good chick-lit, there’s a happy-ish ending for all. ‘Elegance’ taps into that insecurity within each of us through Louise and with the moral of the ‘be careful what you wish for’ attitude.

The book itself won’t change the literary world but I definitely enjoyed reading it. Louise is bumbling – certainly not the most poised person in the world – and her antics are certainly cringe-worthy. It was ‘Elegance’ itself that really fascinated me though. The book Louise picks up is a real A-Z written over 40 years ago by Madame Dariaux herself and after reading Tessaro’s story I was tempted to pick it up for myself. Tessaro manages the mix of both humour and drama, much in the same way Kinsella and Wiesberger, and I’d say this is a much read for any fashion blogger like myself!

Reading soundtrack:

Foundations: Kate Nash; A Change Would Do You Good: Sheryl Crow; Dress You Up: Madonna; Puttin’ On The Ritz: Fred Astaire; Grace Kelly: Mika; Change: Taylor Swift

For lovers of

Sophie Kinsella, Bridget Jones’ Diary, The Devil Wears Prada and the sartorially inclined.

This post was written by regular reviewer Ria, get to know her here.
*all images (c) Ria Cagampang

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Sunday, 28 April 2013

Event | Lucy's World Book Night Experience and Haul

Hello everyone!

As most of you bookworms know, it was World Book Night on Tuesday 23rd April. For those who are unaware, World Book Night gives "Givers" the chance to share one of their favourite books with people who don't usually read that much in the hope that it will get them into reading. And the best part is, it's FREE!

What you may not know however, is that this year was my first year as a Giver! I had seen people in America via Youtube or Twitter talking about World Book Night, but it wasn't until one December evening when I realised that it was a U.K event as well. As soon as I found out, I immediately signed myself up and in February, I received an e-mail saying that yes, I was going to be a Giver for World Book Night.

My top three choices.
In the sign up process, they give you three books to choose from the long list of books available for giving.

My top three choices were:

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. This has already been reviewed by fellow BB blogger Anjali and you can click here to see her fantastic review!
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

Like Anjali, I loved The Knife of Never Letting Go because of the amazing storyline, the interesting world created by the author and the way the book was written was very engaging and gripping. It is a brilliant start to a brilliant series and I seriously recommend it as well as Anjali. Whenever I got the e-mail saying that I was going to be giving copies of my first choice away, I was absolutely thrilled.

On Saturday 20th April, I went down to the Waterstones in Belfast to collect my free 20 books and the picture above shows the amazing new cover that was released especially for the night. On the inside of the book, the left page shows all of the other books that were available for giving. I thought this was a brilliant idea because it gives the recipient of the book a lot of choices on what to read next, especially if they are only new to reading. On the right page was a book plate which gave me the opportunity to fill in my name and where I collected it from. Below this gave links to the World Book Night's website where they could leave feedback if they wanted to.

World Book Night

By the time World Book Night had arrived, I had already given out four books to friends and family. These people didn't really like to read but when I told them a bit more of what the book was about, they said they would give it a go. I had also given a book to a person I work with who was delighted to receive a new story. This now left me with fifteen books to give to strangers on the streets of Belfast.

As soon as I had finished my shift at work on Tuesday, I was on the train to Belfast with the books in my bag and five thousand butterflies in my stomach. Whilst on the train I had given three books away already. This had built up my confidence, especially after getting such a good response from a girl on the train. She was so delighted with a free book and told me that I had made her day. When I had entered the train station, my dad had told me that he had given four other books to people who work with him. I hadn't even left the station and already I had only eight books to give away.

Whilst on the main streets of Belfast, I was so surprised to find that there was barely a soul about. It was about six o'clock in the evening and all of the main shops had closed. Most of the people that I tried to give books to were in a hurry to get the bus or train home. I was fortunate to give a few books away to people sitting outside coffee shops and who seemed not to be in too much of a hurry.

Then I was victim to a lot of rejection. People had headphones on or they were talking on their phones so they didn't want to pay attention to a crazy girl trying to get them to take a free book. After a lot of running around, I met two lovely people who were so delighted with their books that they tried to give me something back in return! Someone who had overheard the conversation came up to me and said, "I would like a book too!" My last person who I gave a book away to was actually from America and she was travelling around Europe. She was thrilled with the idea of a new book to read on the plane. It makes me happy to think that a book that I have given is going to see all these interesting places! I was even more happy to see that I had given all the books away and I had fulfilled my mission to give out a book which is very close to my heart.

When all of the books were given out, I went to the Waterstones in Belfast as there was an event taking place there. I couldn't stay for too long but I did get the chance to take a few free books. Some of the books were books that had been given out last year as well as a few from this year.

From left to right the books which I got for free were:

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (World Book Night 2012)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (World Book Night 2012)
The Reader by Bernard Schlink (World Book Night 2013)
Damage by Josephine Hart (World Book Night 2013)

If you have read any of these books, let me know! I'd love to hear what you thought of them.

To conclude, I thoroughly loved the World Book Night experience! I am so pleased that I managed to give out all of the books sent to me and it seems to me that the books I gave out are all going to well loved homes! I'd love to do it again next year but this time I'd make sure I would be giving them in an area where there would be more people about.

Thank you to World Book Night and to Patrick Ness for letting me share this amazing story with people. And thank you for reading this blog post!mmm

This post was created by regular reviewer Lucy, get to know her here!
Photos taken by Lucy.

3 comments

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Inside Out | Maria V. Snyder | Review

“Exactly. You can shoulder all the blame and become a martyr. Provided anyone knows what or who you're martyring for. Or you can accept that some things are important enough to fight for and realize there will be sacrifices along the way.” - Maria V. Snyder - Inside Out

Trella lives in a dystopian world where she's a scrub. That means that she's a nobody (as she puts it) keeping things clean for those who live on the Upper levels. Trella's life consist of doing her job and trying to keep out of trouble. But that all changes when she without asking for it finds herself being the leader of a secret and dangerous rebellion.

So let's start this review with talking about the characters in Inside Out. Or let's at least talk about the main character Trella. I think she makes a pretty decent main character. I never fall in love with her, but she's interesting enough for me to care. I think that's a pretty good because you can't expect to fall in love with every character that comes your way. But I just have one question; What is it with the dystopian heroines and their issues with showing emotions? Just saying, could someone give me a suggestion of a dystopian novel with an emotional wreck as the heroine? That would be pretty darn exciting!

The world-building in Inside Out is also pretty satisfying. I really appreciate the detail and work that Maria V. Snyder has put into building this dystopian world. But there's one thing I just don't seem to get my head around and that is the way they calculate birthdays. I never seem to get how old anyone is. But it might just be me, I've never been that good with numbers. I also want to give the author some credit for the ending! I didn't expect that at all! I have to say that I'm usually not that easily surprised, but you got me Maria! Well done!

Good characters and good world-building? That kind of sounds like a done deal? No, it's not that easy my friends. I did truly enjoy this book and appreciated Maria V. Snyder's writing. But I didn't love it and I didn't find it amazing. To be honest, I'm not sure why I feel this way, but I can make a decent guess. Even though I think Snyder made a great job with the world-building it's not really a world that I personally feel drawn into. I felt a bit claustrophobic and I guess that's the whole point with this book but I still missed the trees, the streets and the sky! Oh gosh, I'm starting to sound a bit too romantic over here but I guess you get my point.

That being said I think this is a good book and I really recommend it to fans of young adult dystopians! It's a well-written, fast paced and fun read!Inside Out easily gets 3,5/5 stars (if there would've been a few more trees and if Trella would've been a bit more emotional I would've given it 4 stars).

This post was written by regular reviewer Niina, get to know her here.

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Monday, 22 April 2013

The Book of Tomorrow | Cecelia Ahern | Review

I picked The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern up when it was first released and read it in 2 sit in’s. Forget everything else I had to do on those days, they didn't matter because all I cared about was being completely lost and utterly engrossed in this story and finding out where it was going to take me next. Since then I’ve gone back to this book on numerous occasions and each time found I could lose myself in the story over and over again.

In an unexpected twist this is actually a book written about a book. There is also obviously a main character, she is a young, selfish and spoilt teen who moves in which her Aunt and Uncle, being forced to get used to the simple things in life and forget about her fancy holidays, big house and expensive clothes. She ends up with a book from the travelling library, yet all of its pages are blank… however it does not take long for the pages to magically become filled with details…

The Book of Tomorrow is magical, mysterious, heart-warming, funny and unique, there is not a book that I have come across that is anything like this one. The touch of magical which appears in many of Ahern’s book is what makes me go back to them time and time again. She makes the ordinary, exciting and the chic-lit storylines become fascinating and captivating.

If you like books which take you away from reality (but not too far) and have an open mind, The Book of Tomorrow is definitely for you. 5/5 stars

1 comment

Sunday, 21 April 2013

Ultraviolet | R.J. Anderson | Review

Just a quick note or two before I get into this awesome book. If you hang out with me on my own blog, you may have seen this review already. For that, I apologise. I wouldn't normally put the same review on both blogs, but in this case, I'm making an exception.

Short story: I read this book last week and loved it. I posted the review about it on my blog, and then posted the link on Twitter, where R.J. Anderson herself tweeted me saying thank you for the lovely review. I was so excited! We got talking a bit, and it turns out that, even though she is from (and based in) Canada, she was doing a book launch in Oxford, England, for the sequel to Ultraviolet. Oxford is only about 40mins drive from me, so I excitedly made plans to go to the launch. That's happening this coming Tuesday, so I thought that it would be something cool to write about when I get back from that. So! To lead up to that book launch post, I thought I'd re-post this review so you guys know a little about the book, so when it comes to reading about the book launch, you won't be so much in the dark that you can't see. Sound okay? Let's do this!

*****

I believe I stumbled across this book while browsing on Goodreads one day, and added it to my to-read list...like you do. A few weeks ago I reserved it from the library, but didn't read it until about a week ago. And then I couldn't stop. When I got it out of the library I couldn't really remember what I had read about it (blurb etc). All I had to go with was the back, which read 'Once upon a time there was a girl who was special. This is not her story. Unless you count the part where I killed her'. What!? Okay. So I started reading...

I didn't really know what to expect, and after the first chapter I was wondering what I had gotten myself in to. But after another chapter or two I was hooked. Alison Jefferies has been involuntarily thrown into a mental institution after an extreme psychotic outbreak and screams of 'I killed her'. But when we meet Alison, she doesn't really know why she is there, or where 'there' is. Eventually she realises what's going on. Ever since she was very small, Alison has always been different. She would talk about the colours she saw and the sounds she tasted (you read correctly), and her mother would tell her to stop being silly. As she grew, Alison learnt to keep her experiences to herself. Only when she is in the hospital does she learn that what she has - what she's always had - is Synaesthesia. She hears colour, tastes words, sees numbers as colours, hears the stars as a song, and she can also see the colours on the ultraviolet spectrum.

She has been put into the mental institution because, as I mentioned, she claimed to have seen Tori Beaugrand disintegrate right in front her, and because she can't remember what happened, she assumes that she killed her. But as the story goes on, and Alison learns more about herself and her synaesthesia, she realises that she can't have killed Tori. Doctor Sebastian Faraday teaches her about her condition and life begins to make sense. But, like all good stories, things start to unravel when Alison discovers that Doctor Faraday isn't all that he seems. Amazing twist/genre change - and now it's suddenly about aliens. I mean, what? What is going on!? You'll have to read it.

Ultraviolet is written in first person and R.J. Anderson has done a great job at writing Alison and the way she experiences everything around her. It's quite incredible to read. It was nice to read a book that was labelled 'teen', but without the silly love triangles and teenage drama drama drama. With crazy people (literally) in the institution ward with her, a mother who doesn't understand her, a best friend her doesn't visit her, a Doctor who doesn't believe her and a horrific weight upon her shoulders, it doesn't really sound like a calming, relaxing, happy-clappy book. And it's not. But it's full of wonderful characters, and amazing sensory descriptions, singing stars, a loving father, a worried friend, and answers to a lot of questions...and my goodness, you won't be able to get it out of your head for at least 2 days after you've finished reading it. I've started my next book and I'm still thinking about this one.

Image from GoodReads.

2 comments

Saturday, 20 April 2013