What It Is Versus What It Appears To Be

“We’re all just in the muck trying to believe we’re capable of greatness, but closer to breaking than we want to admit.” Truth

“The story you walk in to, he has learned, is always more complex than it first appears.” Truth

23.14 S

I loved this book:

This is a book lover’s dream – an old library book whose author is being researched by two students who write all of their notes in the margins as they go.  I have always dreamed of finding a mystery in a book, keeping notes.  It is an amazing piece of work, and quite honestly baffling to think of the process it took to put it all together. I truly loved every page.

I didn’t like the story:

Maybe I read it wrong.  Maybe I should have read the original “book” and then gone back to the marginalia.  Maybe the other way around.  But I know for sure that I generally read as a way to escape the feeling that everything I am doing in life is wrong, so to read a book and feel that way was just no fun. I truly hated very page.

So, what to say?  It’s beautiful, and adventurous, and tedious and frustrating.  In the end it will sit on my shelf to be looked at and never read again.  I will tell friends I loved it but not to read it.  So what’s the point? Not real sure myself.  But it kind of sums up 2013 for me – some huge changes for me and mine coupled with a very strong feeling of what the hell am I doing.  Things looking good on the outside but kind of all over the place on the inside.  So, how about in 2014 we just keep it simple and get back to basics.  I think I’ll start with Longbourne, because if the Bennets can’t get me back on track no one can.

Too Much Cuckoo

“When you are young, and beautiful, you can be very cruel.” Truth.

23.13 The Cuckoo’s Calling

This book took me far too long to get through. I picked it up thinking a well-written mystery would pull me in immediately, and once it was the hottest headline that JK Rowling was the actual author behind the story I jumped on it.  And then I floundered.  Seriously floundered.

It took me weeks to read, and I found myself trying to avoid it.  There was something about the whole thing that was very sad.  Of course, a murder mystery isn’t the most cherry of subject but that wasn’t all.  Everyone here was sad.  Lying about who they were or what they wanted.  Refusing to ask help from the ones they should trust most.  There was just something about it that made me feel even more shut in and lonely – and that was the last thing I needed when I picked it up.

Is it well written? Absolutely. Rowling can paint a character with words better than anyone else.  I guess I just needed her to paint someone a bit more happy to be living the life they were.

Rough

“‘Boss,’ he says. ‘I need to do something.’

‘So go on then,’ she says. ‘What?’

‘I can’t tell you.’”   

Luther’s Truth.  And once you know him, you know he means it.

22.13 Luther: The Calling

Luther is a BBC show that I totally stumbled on, and I was completely mesmerized.  Idris Elba IS Luther. He embraces the character in a way I have never seen before.  I stood up clapping and crying when he won the Golden Globe.  And yet, Luther is awful.  In the way Tony Soprano is awful.  In an I-totally-want-that-guy-on-my-side way.  In an I-feel-like-I-should-be-embarrassed-to-admit-my-adoration kind of way.  In fact, I don’t recommend this show to many friends because while I love it so much I also think it is probably a bit too real and too rough to be admired by too many.

Luther’s life is a mess.  His marriage, his career, his mind… All of it is falling apart and yet he manages to get the bad guy – generally with the help of some other rather shady guys – because he believes in justice.  Every single episode of the show is emblazoned on my brain in a way I can’t explain, partially because they are plain and simple rough to watch.  All of it is really violent, really realistic, and really rough. It reminds us how there is a bad side to everyone and maybe the ones who hide it more are really the worse ones in the end. Again, it is really rough and so is this book.

I am not sure you should read it if you haven’t seen the show, it is written by the creator of the show so it evokes the characters flawlessly, but if you didn’t already know them I am not sure it would work.  I am not going to talk about the plot but I will say any fan of the show needs to read this because it is a case you want to know more about.  Apparently there will be more books, and they take place before the events in the show, which is an interesting choice especially because he chose to write about immediately before those events.  I twas expecting to see a Luther pre-breakdown, but no – he is still a mess, and while that is completely compelling I was hoping to get a bit more insight into why he is the way he is.  Although, maybe it is better not to know, maybe I have no idea what rough really is.

Summer Reading

“What a thing to go through life without books.”  Truth

What is it about summer?  You think there is nothing to do but be hot and thus lounge by the pool and read, right?  That is what I thought I was in store for this summer, but no… I had to move, and visit family, and socialize.  Not much reading going on, and so I have managed to finish a whooping six books this summer.  Of course, it doesn’t help that the last two were kind of stinkers and so I was left wanting to do anything other than reading.

21.13 Etiquette & Espionage

Great Cover! Great Title! Great Blurb!  Not such a great book. 

This YA should have sucked me in and lasted about two days - a perfect summer read – instead it became a total chore for two weeks.  It reminded me of summer reading for school, at times honestly doing nothing was more entertaining than reading some of that dredge.  The main character is interesting and the school seems wonderful but I felt like I should have cared much more about it all by the end of book one.  We will just have to see how the series progresses.

20.13 Ratlines

This was a dude book disguised as historical fiction.  There was far too little history, and far too many fisticuffs and too much torture and killing.  Blah.  Not good.

As I said, it was a sad summer reading season, but right now I am going to pick up a book based on the Luther series, and on September 3^rd BBC will start showing Series Three.  So summer be damned! Bring on fall, Luther, and, let’s not forget, Alice.  Yippee!!!

The Other Side of the Tunnel

“But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head. An inscape, a world of thought.” Truth.

19.13 NOS4A2

I just read a 690-page book in a week!  Who-Hoo!!! I’m back baby.  Thank you Joe Hill for the right book at the right time – and for scaring the crap out of me!!!

Joe Hill, much like his dad, takes something everyday and makes it totally creepy.  Like IT becoming morphing into whatever the individual is scared of, or like The Shining where you are locked up inside the place that is literally making you crazy, and in NOS4A2 where Hill takes on Christmas. 

You know when you walk around Target at Christmas time and there is music playing, and trees everywhere, and it is fun for about 15 minutes?  That is what Christmasland sounds like to me, so fun for a little while and then I would want it to be over, but for a kid? Heaven.  Just yesterday, Darren was asking when Santa was coming again.  No thought to the fact that a creepy old man coming down the chimney into our home is totally freaky!  Anyway, Charlie Manx likes to take little children to Christmasland, a place he has created in his mind.  And maybe the best part of the book for me was when Hill reminds us that many things that are now reality were once just imaginary.  See… Taking something that we all do, daydream, and making the reality totally reasonable.  That for me is scary and enticing at the same time.  So the story drew me in, and I was finally able to get lost again, but I have to say that when I found myself humming a Christmas carol during breakfast on Saturday I almost came out of my skin.

On The Fence

“It was time to let go.” Truth.

18.13 Shadow and Bone

So I loved parts of this as I read but after sitting with it a few days there are more and more things I didn’t like – and I hate (as usual) that it is another unfinished trilogy and so lost all of its steam at the end.

Characters –

The Good:

I love that Alina feels a sureness in her power – not like it is natural or outside of herself, but a thing she feels right about.  

It isn’t really clear who is good or bad, and it totally works.

The Bad:

Everyone is far too concerned about how they look.  This is a fantasy for goodness sake, can’t we leave the reality out?  Essentially she gets plastic surgery and this is skeevy for me.

I wanted to know more about the royal family. *To be fair, this may come later.

World Building –

The Good:

Original.

I like that it is allowed to unfold naturally instead of being explained ad nauseam to the reader.

Not a lot of back story.

The Bad:

Not a lot of back story. *Yes, this is both good and bad. 

There are a lot of different places mentioned but I don’t know why I should care about any of them.

I need a bit more about how the Grisha rankings work.

The Plot –

The Good:

The endless travel scenes plugged right along and I didn’t have to hear about every berry they tried to eat or fire they started.

The Shadow Fold seems like a genuinely scary thing and the bad guy is pretty bad and yet a bit logical.  Intriguing.

The Bad:

I read it two days ago and haven’t thought about it since, or thought of picking up the second book.

I finished reading the book and the story isn’t over.  I am honestly so tired of this.

Overall, I will be back, but I may wait until it has all been published.  Curses to the trilogies and my OCD to finish things I have started.  *See, I always bitch about it but also end up buying all the books – damn you capitalism.

It Is What It Is

“We don’t have access to private jets for authors of tomes about religious history. If you want to write Fifty Shades of Iconography, we can talk.”  Truth. And yes, this really is in this book. My gawd. 

17.13 Inferno

I have hit the post move funk and all I can come up with to tell myself is that: It is what it is.  We have left that place and are now in this place, and even though it is a place we have been before it isn’t the same.  Because life rolls along and time passes, people change and some stay the same. I may need to adjust where I go and what I do but really, in many ways, it stays the same because it is what it is.

If there is anything that is said over and over about Dan Brown is that he is what he is, and is said almost like an excuse.  His books aren’t great literature but they are generally great page-turners, so while they are ok for being one thing they aren’t treated as another by many.  So while Inferno is what I expected to be, I also feel kind of over it.  (Much like Reno; it is much like I expected it to be but I also already feel kind of over it. And that PISSES ME OFF!!! Get over it Karen, it is what it is.  It isn’t what it was, or what I imagined it to be, or what I need in every way; it is what it is, and it is my fault for not choosing to make that positive and fun instead of sad and lonely.)  Anyway, back to the book, it felt just like a rehash of the other Langdon books and even less interesting.  Maybe it was because there have been so many really well done homages to Dante and Inferno.  Honestly, what this book did most was make me want to go back and re-read The Dante Club – now that was fun!

Often in my life I have found myself reading the perfect book at the perfect time. But this time I didn’t find the perfect book but the perfect movie.  The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It is wonderful, and happy and sad.  And while I am sure it was marked as overly sentimental by some I was so happy to watch it, and to learn from it.

“There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it.” The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  Truth.