Take a photo of a barcode or cover
arthuriana's reviews
611 reviews
Rampant by Diana Peterfreund
4.0
There is no explanation as to why I liked this as much as I did.
'Tis a guilty pleasure.
'Tis a guilty pleasure.
It Started With A Kiss by Miranda Dickinson
5.0
You know, I said to myself one day, 'gee, chick-lit seems to be popular nowadays, I'll just check some reviews of the genre online to see if it's gonna click with me.' Thus, in doing so, I've discovered that, apparently, chick-lit was for middle-aged women and, rather negatively, those who were a sucker for sappy romance films and had nothing better to do than sigh about their love lives.
Then, I saw this book. I saw its cover and said, "my, what a gorgeous font!"* I saw the palette and appreciated its colors. I know that you should never judge a book by its cover, but, dear God, if that's a sin, then I'd surely be in hell. I'm deeply appreciative of really good covers, and when something looks pretty, there's a good chance that I'll read it.
Most often, this has resulted in bad tussles with the written word. When talking about covers, I'm most drawn to the YA genre (a dark, dark genre that I'm not sure I'd ever be ready to go back to) but those largely resulted in fails (some of which were so fail-tastic that I'm embarrassed to even mark them as read in Goodreads). Despite that, I still went and got the book.
Suffice to say, I'm really thankful that I've done so. This book, while containing not much action, contains a cast of richly drawn and fully realized characters, which accounts for about 99.9999999998% of how I judge a book. Dickinson manages to write off Rom's quest as heartwarmingly romantic without making it look stalker-ish. Although the fact that it could be seen as such is acknowledged in the book (and even more than acknowledged . . . but I hesitate to say more for fear of telling spoilers), which is something that I'm incredibly grateful for.
In conclusion: a quick, heartwarming read.
Then, I saw this book. I saw its cover and said, "my, what a gorgeous font!"* I saw the palette and appreciated its colors. I know that you should never judge a book by its cover, but, dear God, if that's a sin, then I'd surely be in hell. I'm deeply appreciative of really good covers, and when something looks pretty, there's a good chance that I'll read it.
Most often, this has resulted in bad tussles with the written word. When talking about covers, I'm most drawn to the YA genre (a dark, dark genre that I'm not sure I'd ever be ready to go back to) but those largely resulted in fails (some of which were so fail-tastic that I'm embarrassed to even mark them as read in Goodreads). Despite that, I still went and got the book.
Suffice to say, I'm really thankful that I've done so. This book, while containing not much action, contains a cast of richly drawn and fully realized characters, which accounts for about 99.9999999998% of how I judge a book. Dickinson manages to write off Rom's quest as heartwarmingly romantic without making it look stalker-ish. Although the fact that it could be seen as such is acknowledged in the book (and even more than acknowledged . . . but I hesitate to say more for fear of telling spoilers), which is something that I'm incredibly grateful for.
In conclusion: a quick, heartwarming read.
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
5.0
You know, there are quite possibly no words to describe this piece of brilliance. It's tedious to the point of being sleep-inducing in some pages but when something does click with you . . . well, you're off singing Hallelujah and singing praises to this book's name.
China: Land of Dragons and Emperors by Adeline Yen Mah
4.0
Informative and quite educational, this really helped a lot with some of my confusion about China's history and made me more curious to get a history book that would tackle this subject more thoroughly. Though I have to add, the edition I read was riddled with errors—thankfully, not typographical, but just the spacing wherethewordswouldgolikethis for some reason: a small error, to be sure, but annoying, nonetheless.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
5.0
You know, I thought that the beginning of this book was bland, boring, totally and completely purposeless and the thought that Ernest Hemingway—one of the greatest writers ever by reputation—had decided to sit down one day and write something this inane was baffling.
Then came the actual struggle, Santiago's determination to go on because that is what he wants, and then I felt moved, touched: this was good—no, it's actually quite brilliant. It's a short meditative study about the struggles we face in life and . . . well, I couldn't have asked for anything more.
Then came the actual struggle, Santiago's determination to go on because that is what he wants, and then I felt moved, touched: this was good—no, it's actually quite brilliant. It's a short meditative study about the struggles we face in life and . . . well, I couldn't have asked for anything more.
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
4.0
Let me start this review by saying that, while other people might be on to classics as assigned reading and bitching about it, I'm here reading YA and . . . kind of but not really bitching about it.
Okay, this novel was good: it was spectacular, actually. The writing was beautiful and made me feel as if I was really there with the character. I could comment on the plot's originality but I don't have much experience reading these kind of books, so I wouldn't know anything except for the fact that I would be perfectly honest when saying that I've never read anything quite like it.
But, to tell you, the plot was slow and the exposition could bore you to tears. It took about a hundred pages to get me even mildly interested about the plot. A hundred pages, I tell you! That's about a quarter of the book: a quarter filled with nothing but the main character moping and going depressed and honestly if not for the French Revolution thing that was promised later? Yeah, I'd be calling it quits and happily be waving hello to a failing grade.
As you can see, I stuck around for the promise of the French Revolution, and while books and the French Revolution don't quite have an easy relationship with each other, I still managed to get optimistic about this. (Honestly, how hard is it to understand the dynamics of the Revolution?) Suffice to say, while it did deliver some parts with beautiful and stellar prose, and thus provided an enjoyable reading, the endless bashing—or so I see it—of the Revolution and of Robespierre, especially of Robespierre, was kind of grating and hell no, I did not sign up for this kind of shitting upon the Revolution. I wanted Revolutionaries, darn it: oppressed people nearly starved and beaten to death driven to desperation and fighting out against the damn aristocracy because, seriously, the monarchy was inefficient and needed to be thrown out in favor for something else that would work better. If a republic is the answer, then so be it; would you rather that people genuinely starve to death because bread out of all things was too expensive?
But, still, the music part enthralled me: especially about Donnelly's made-up musician, whose history was so vivid that I thought him to be real up until the point that I reached Andi's conclusion about who he really is. I mean, come on, that would be too much of a coincidence for it to be real. It's such a pity, though: I honestly felt disappointed when I realized that.
The characters, however, felt iffy. I mean this is what I thought about the main character: okay, you're depressed and stuff, could we please move on? Oh, now you're doing something else that isn't depressing—yay! . . . oh, wait, now you're depressed again and you have been for, like, the past hundred pages, we get it, now please stop telling us this and fucking move on already. The sad thing about this is I'm not kidding.
As for the romance . . . well, I don't know what I think about the romance subplot in here. I mean, I kinda shipped Andi with Cooper, then with Nick when things got a bit heated between them, and finally even with Amadé himself because, awwww, I could just imagine Andi staying and being all modernist and egalitarian and totally rockin' with Led Zeppellin and stuff and Amadé just smiling and being happy and until now I feel that that's how it should have been—but, okay, the endgame romance was kinda tolerable: not good, since it didn't really inspire any romantic feelings in me, but tolerable, at the very least, which is definitely saying something with how romances are stacking up in present-day YA.
Still, the writing was so beautiful and the premise was great and, hey, the bits about the French Revolution might not be what I wanted it to be, but at least it still concerns the Revolution, which is more than I could ask out of any book, so I gave it 3.5 stars. Due to Goodreads not allowing half-star ratings, I rounded it up to 4.
P. S.: I still feel that there should be an AU fic somewhere out there about Andi actually dying with the blow to her head and staying in Revolutionary France as her kind of purgatory (I've firmly established that she won't go to Heaven) and that, yeah, she died. I mean, even with the ending as it is in the book, I still can't help thinking about it.
Okay, this novel was good: it was spectacular, actually. The writing was beautiful and made me feel as if I was really there with the character. I could comment on the plot's originality but I don't have much experience reading these kind of books, so I wouldn't know anything except for the fact that I would be perfectly honest when saying that I've never read anything quite like it.
But, to tell you, the plot was slow and the exposition could bore you to tears. It took about a hundred pages to get me even mildly interested about the plot. A hundred pages, I tell you! That's about a quarter of the book: a quarter filled with nothing but the main character moping and going depressed and honestly if not for the French Revolution thing that was promised later? Yeah, I'd be calling it quits and happily be waving hello to a failing grade.
As you can see, I stuck around for the promise of the French Revolution, and while books and the French Revolution don't quite have an easy relationship with each other, I still managed to get optimistic about this. (Honestly, how hard is it to understand the dynamics of the Revolution?) Suffice to say, while it did deliver some parts with beautiful and stellar prose, and thus provided an enjoyable reading, the endless bashing—or so I see it—of the Revolution and of Robespierre, especially of Robespierre, was kind of grating and hell no, I did not sign up for this kind of shitting upon the Revolution. I wanted Revolutionaries, darn it: oppressed people nearly starved and beaten to death driven to desperation and fighting out against the damn aristocracy because, seriously, the monarchy was inefficient and needed to be thrown out in favor for something else that would work better. If a republic is the answer, then so be it; would you rather that people genuinely starve to death because bread out of all things was too expensive?
But, still, the music part enthralled me: especially about Donnelly's made-up musician, whose history was so vivid that I thought him to be real up until the point that I reached Andi's conclusion about who he really is. I mean, come on, that would be too much of a coincidence for it to be real. It's such a pity, though: I honestly felt disappointed when I realized that.
The characters, however, felt iffy. I mean this is what I thought about the main character: okay, you're depressed and stuff, could we please move on? Oh, now you're doing something else that isn't depressing—yay! . . . oh, wait, now you're depressed again and you have been for, like, the past hundred pages, we get it, now please stop telling us this and fucking move on already. The sad thing about this is I'm not kidding.
As for the romance . . . well, I don't know what I think about the romance subplot in here. I mean, I kinda shipped Andi with Cooper, then with Nick when things got a bit heated between them, and finally even with Amadé himself because, awwww, I could just imagine Andi staying and being all modernist and egalitarian and totally rockin' with Led Zeppellin and stuff and Amadé just smiling and being happy and until now I feel that that's how it should have been—but, okay, the endgame romance was kinda tolerable: not good, since it didn't really inspire any romantic feelings in me, but tolerable, at the very least, which is definitely saying something with how romances are stacking up in present-day YA.
Still, the writing was so beautiful and the premise was great and, hey, the bits about the French Revolution might not be what I wanted it to be, but at least it still concerns the Revolution, which is more than I could ask out of any book, so I gave it 3.5 stars. Due to Goodreads not allowing half-star ratings, I rounded it up to 4.
P. S.: I still feel that there should be an AU fic somewhere out there about Andi actually dying with the blow to her head and staying in Revolutionary France as her kind of purgatory (I've firmly established that she won't go to Heaven) and that, yeah, she died. I mean, even with the ending as it is in the book, I still can't help thinking about it.
The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell
3.0
A so-and-so book that I felt could have been better, this is, nonetheless, certainly a book for the kids, which is all it ever set out to do.
A Model Victory by Malcolm Balen
4.0
The Model Victory, while certainly educational and informative, was rather hard to get through at times. Though the prose was stellar and actually inspired to finish it, my lack of knowledge about this subject is quite detrimental to the reading experience--so, despite the fact that the author managed to introduce certain concepts without it being boring, I was simply too bogged down by the military terms and the significance of this attack or that siege into the final turn of events.
And, seeing as that fault is completely mine, and not the author's, this book is still a solid four stars because it was still quite enjoyable to read.
And, seeing as that fault is completely mine, and not the author's, this book is still a solid four stars because it was still quite enjoyable to read.