Hi all!
Thank you for entering my Canada Day Giveaway and welcome to all my new followers! I hope you’ll enjoy my blog!
The winner of the Canada Day Giveaway is Ileana A. (I just sent her an e-mail) Congratulations!!
As soon as she has her book, I’ll tell you all what she got 🙂
Thank you Chrystal of Snowdrop Dreams of Books, Aislynn of Stitch Read Cook & Carmel of Rabid Reads for organizing this great blog hop!
Wie bereits angekündigt, gibt es zwei Blog Posts zu diesem Buch. Das ist nun der Zweite in Deutscher Sprache. Es geht in dieser Review um das Buch Die Rosen von Montevideo von Carla Federico welches ich bei Lovelybooks gewonnen habe.
Montevideo 1843. Der Frankfurter Bankierssohn Albert Gothmann verliebt sich Hals über Kopf in die lebenslustige Rosa, Tochter einer der ältesten spanischen Familien Uruguays. Doch ihre Liebe zwingt sie zum Verzicht auf ihre Heimat, ein Schicksal, das fortan alle Nachfahrinnen ihrer Familie teilen. Sind die Frauen stark genug, um für ihre Leidenschaft zu kämpfen?
Die Rosen von Montevideo spielt hauptsächlich im Uruguay und Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Autorin Carla Federico beschreibt die historischen Vorgänge dieser Zeit sehr umfassend und gibt so einen guten Einblick in die Zeit in der das Buch spielt. Auch die Landschaft in Südamerika ist meiner Meinung nach gut beschrieben. Sobald es um kleinere räumliche Einheiten geht, werden die Beschreibungen der Handlungsorte etwas karger.
Da Die Rosen von Montevideo eine Familiensaga ist die sich über mehrere Generationen spannt, gibt es mehrere Hauptfiguren. Anfangs konnte ich mich noch gut in die Lage der ersten Hauptfigur Rosa hinein versetzen, aber je weiter die Geschichte voranschritt und je mehr Figuren dazukamen, desto schwerer fiel es mir mich mit den Figuren zu identifizieren. Außerdem fällt auf, dass die Figuren sich sehr ähnlich (wenn nicht schon stereotyp) sind. Das lässt sich allerdings nicht nur durch Verwandtschaft erklären. So sind sich zum Beispiel Albert, Luis und Antonio von ihren Eigenschaften her wirklich sehr ähnlich, obwohl nur Luis und Antonio miteinander verwandt sind. Ähnliche Parallelen lassen sich auch bei den Frauen ziehen.
Was die Parallelen betrifft, so gab es von diesen in der Handlung mehr als genug. Anfangs war die Verwendung von Parallelen wirklich ein gelungenes Stilmittel, das ich sehr zu schätzen wusste. Mit der Zeit wurden diese Parallelen jedoch zur Qual und eigentlich nur noch langweilig. Hier ist weniger oft mehr.
Generell muss ich sagen, dass mit Die Rosen von Montevideo für meinen Geschmack wohl zu viel auf einmal versucht wurde. Die Mischung aus Liebesgeschichte, Drama, Historienroman und Familiensaga hat mich einfach überwältigt. Hier wäre locker Stoff für drei Bücher vorhanden gewesen. Ich will damit nicht sagen, dass mir das Buch gar nicht gefallen hat. Es hat mich vor allem im ersten Drittel gut unterhalten und auch die historischen Hintergrundinformationen waren sicher gut recherchiert.
Mein Fazit: Ein Roman für historisch Interessierte die drei Generationen junger Frauen auf ihrem holprigen und und von Parallelen geprägten Kampf ums Glück begleiten wollen.
¹ http://www.droemer-knaur.de/buch/7768688/die-rosen-von-montevideo
Welcome to the 3rd Annual Canada Day Blog Hop which runs from June 27th to July 1st 2013
and is Co-hosted by Chrystal of Snowdrop Dreams of Books, Aislynn of Stitch Read Cook & Carmel of Rabid Reads!
In honour of Canada‘s birthday we are having a Canada Day Blog Hop extravaganza!
Each blog will host their own giveaway – Canada themed of course!
Giveaway’s will run from June 27th to July 1st
This is my first giveaway and I am very excited about it. I love Canada and when I read about this blog hop, I thought “This is it!”
In honour of my Canadian family (Hi Grandma, Grandpa, aunties, uncles and cousins! *wave*) I’m giving away one of my favourite books about Canada and which one will be a surprise 🙂 I will tell you about it as soon as the winner has it!
Rules:
If you understand and agree to these rules please click this link: a Rafflecopter giveaway
And now head over to all the other sites offering more great giveaways (I cannot get this code to work so just head over to Rabid Reads to see all the other participating pages): http://rabidreads.ca/2013/06/canada-day-blog-hop-3.html
Okay, it’s decided. I’m doing two separate blog posts on this book. This one in English and a second one in German. They are basically the same (content wise). I’m doing this because I need to post an all-German blog post for this reading challenge I’m in which is all about this book I am reviewing: Die Rosen von Montevideo by Carla Federico. 🙂 I won this book at Lovelybooks.
Montevideo 1843. Albert Gothmann, a banker’s son from Frankfurt, falls in love with cheerful Rosa, daughter of one of the oldest Spanish families in Uruguay. This love forces Rosa to part with her native land – a fate that her descendants will share with her. Will these women be strong enough to fight for their happiness?
The book Die Rosen von Montevideo is mainly set in 19th century Uruguay and Germany. Carla Federico manages to give good insight into the time the book is set in by describing various historical happenings. I also liked how she depicted the South American landscape. As soon as Ms. Federico starts to write about smaller spacial entities, the descriptions are getting a little more vague.
As Die Rosen von Montevideo is a family saga that spans several generations, there is more than one main character. In the beginning, it was easy to empathize with the first main character Rosa but the farther I read, the harder it got to identify with all those characters. The characters are very similar to one another (some are very stereotypical). This is something that cannot only be explained by the characters being relatives because Albert, Luis and Antonio have very similar character traits but only Luis and Antonio are related. Similar parallels can also be drawn among the female characters in the novel.
Concerning parallels: There were more than enough of them in this novel. What started out as a great stylistic device, soon turned into something that pained me and in the end even bored me. Sometimes, less is more…
It seems to me, that with Die Rosen von Montevideo Ms. Federico tried too much at once. The mix of love story, drama, historical fiction and family saga was too much for me. In my opinion, this book contains ideas that could have filled 3 books. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t like the book. I particularly enjoyed the first third and I also liked the historical background information.
My conclusion: A book for readers who are interested in history and who want to follow 3 generations of young women on their long and hard fight for happiness.
¹ http://www.droemer-knaur.de/buch/7768688/die-rosen-von-montevideo
Welcome back,
Here’s another book I got a few weeks back – Beautiful Lies by Clare Clark. I got this book in a little competition on Vintage’s Twitter Page, where we had to find three differences between the original book cover and an altered book cover. I like games like that. Thank you for the book!
A few updates:
Now on to the book:
It is 1887, and an unsettled London prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Maribel, beautiful bohemian wife of maverick political Edward Campbell Lowe and self-proclaimed Chilean heiress educated in Paris, debates how to make her own mark on the world, while experimenting with the new art of photography. However, the wife of an outspoken member of parliament, whose views inspire enmity and admiration in equal measure, should not be hiding the kind of secrets Maribel has buried in her past.
When a notorious newspaper editor beings to take an uncommon interest in her, Maribel fears he will destroy not only Edward’s career but both of their reputations.
¹ http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/beautiful-lies/9780099570462
You haven’t read all Neil Gaiman books? Me neither. Well, now seems to be the perfect time. As Neil Gaiman’s new book The Ocean at the End of the Lane is out since yesterday (June 18th), it seems Amazon decided to lower the price on many Neil Gaiman Kindle books. You can get books like The Graveyard Book, Coraline or Stardust for under 5 Euros (I think they also are under $5 for US customers, I only see the price they charge for European customers and that’s usually higher and they are still under $5. Unfortunately, I cannot see the price information for the UK, but I think the same applies here. Just check.).
Just head over to your country’s Amazon site and search for Neil Gaiman Kindle books 🙂 Happy Shopping!
(It could be that other e-book platforms also lowered their price for the books. Go check!)
Happy Friday everyone,
It’s a busy time for me right now. I’ve got lots of exams coming up at the end of June and the beginning of July. Nevertheless, I have good news:
I won a pre-release copy of Neil Gaiman‘s The Ocean at the End of the Lane from The Independent. YAY 🙂
Here it is:
I can’t guarantee that I’ll get to read it before the official release on Tuesday, as I’ve got lots of studying to do and I also joined a reading challenge where I have to read a 774-page book and do lots of tasks until the end of June (and that book also arrived today – whoa). I’ll still try though. Maybe I’ll have to pull an all-nighter.
It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed – within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it.
His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.
¹ http://www.headline.co.uk/Books/detail.page?isbn=9781472200310
Thanks to Lovelybooks and Random House UK (Bantam Press), I won a copy of Dan Brown’s Inferno.
“Seek and ye shall find.”
With these words echoing in his head, eminent Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon awakes in a hospital bed with no recollection of where he is or how he got there. Nor can he explain the origin of the macabre object that is found hidden in his belongings.
A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city of Florence. Only Langdon’s knowledge of hidden passageways and ancient secrets that lie behind its historic facade can save them from the clutches of their unknown pursuers.
– This review might contain light spoilers –
I cannot write too much about where Inferno is set because that would give away too much of the plot. Inferno’s plot starts in Florence and Mr. Brown made the Florentine atmosphere believable for me. I have been to Florence and one other city he describes in greater detail before, so I don’t know if that could also play a role.
Robert Langdon is a very nice character. I could easily relate to him. I also had no problems with Sienna, who is his companion for most of the book. After about three-quarters of the book there were some problems with the characters that also had to do with the plot. There was a plot twist and, in my opinion, that plot twist made a lot of characters lose all credibility.
Overall, the plot is full of suspense and the first 200-300 pages are so full of action that I always thought I needed some breathing space. Nevertheless, these first 300 pages also seemed somehow lengthy. Unfortunately, I can’t really grasp what made me think that. I can only say that the remaining ~200 pages went by much quicker and were a more relaxing read with a lower heart rate involved.
This was my first book by Dan Brown and it was definitely not boring. (Although there were some lengthy parts that were less interesting.) Still, Inferno has its weaknesses. I had many issues with character credibility. (It’s also embarrassing when readers find the answer to a letter riddle much faster than Langdon and a very intelligent person) Overall, Inferno is a book for people who are already fans of the series, or who are interested in a thrill ride that involves art, literature, history and a secret I’m not going to tell.
¹ http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/inferno/9780593072493
Thanks to DK Books, I got an ARC of Jane Bull’s Crafty Creatures, which includes many tutorials for all sorts of cute and easy animal crafts. I’ll tell you more about this book in a separate post where I will also try one or two crafts myself 🙂
Packed with more than 30 inspiring ideas, from fat felt cats, to dangly octopuses and zany pom-pom pals, Crafty Creatures and author Jane Bull help you create your own world of colorful, cuddly animals, as well as phone pouches, purses, jewelry, and more!
With helpful templates and patterns alongside basic sewing techniques, Crafty Creatures includes simple step-by-step instructions with detailed photographs to make sure everyone can accomplish any project in the book.
Have you read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? I’ve read it a few years ago and I really enjoyed it. It is a smooth read and I would really recommend it to those who are scared of reading classics because they think that classics are long and boring. The Great Gatsby is anything but long and boring 🙂
But now on to the movie.
When I first saw this trailer, I was excited. This excitement turned into horror, when I found out that the music in the movie would be modern music instead of 20s music. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I have to say that the music was okay. It wasn’t as disturbing as I’d expected it to be and it was quite pleasant sometimes. There was something else that bothered me: The computer animation.
At some points in the film, the computer animation becomes obvious. Waaaay too obvious. I haven’t seen the movie in 3D, so I have no idea if it’s the same for people who have seen it in 3D. But the water for example, or the star-filled sky, they were really ugly to look at. This wouldn’t be a problem, if the whole movie was a computer animated Disney movie but it wasn’t. I don’t know why the movie’s creator did this.
Other than that, I really enjoyed The Great Gatsby. Great costumes (!!), beautiful houses and, of course, the actors 🙂 Tobey Maguire did a wonderful job. Isla Fisher, Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan were also very good. And Mr. DiCaprio is a great Gatsby. Don’t you think?
All That Magic 