Review

Review – A Thousand Perfect Things

~ Hanna ~ 2 Comments

Hi there,

I hope you’re all having a great weekend. Last week, I finished Kay Kenyon‘s A Thousand Perfect Things (thanks again to Premier Digital Publishing for the ARC). So here’s my review. Enjoy. 🙂

Image linked from Kay Kenyon¹
Summary quoted from Kay Kenyon¹:

In an alternate 19th century, there are two warring continents on an reimagined earth: the scientific Anglica (England) and magical Bharata (India). Emboldened by her grandfather’s final whispered secret of a magical lotus, Tori Harding, a young Victorian woman and aspiring botanist, must journey to Bharata, with its magics, intrigues and ghosts, to claim her fate. There she will face a choice between two suitors and two irreconcilable realms.

My Thoughts:

A Thousand Perfect Things is set in the 19th century on two fictional continents called Anglica and Bharata. I really enjoyed Kay Kenyon’s descriptions of the setting, especially of exotic Bharata. She managed to make me feel enchanted by this distant place. It seemed to me that her descriptions got more vivid in the last third of the book.

As to the characters, this novel mainly focuses on Tori Harding, a young woman who unlike other women her age is not interested in marriage, but wants to become a botanist. I had no problems empathizing with Tori. I also enjoyed the variety of other characters in A Thousand Perfect Things, yet there were no big surprises.

I really enjoyed this special story Ms. Kenyon created. It has history, magic and far off places. All the things I like. Still, the story had its lengths and that was the downside of this book. I read it on my Kindle, so I can’t say how many pages the book really had. But it felt like 600 and it shouldn’t have. Still, I strongly recommend to finish A Thousand Perfect Things. This book feels magical!

bohnen4s (actually 3.5 beans)

¹ http://www.kaykenyon.com/novels/

Review – Die Rosen von Montevideo (Deutsche Version)

~ Hanna ~ Leave a comment

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.

Bild von Droemer Knaur¹
Inhalt übernommen von Droemer Knaur¹:

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?

Meine Gedanken zum Buch:

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.

bohnen3s
¹ http://www.droemer-knaur.de/buch/7768688/die-rosen-von-montevideo

Review – Die Rosen von Montevideo (English Version)

~ Hanna ~ 1 Comment

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.

Image linked from Droemer Knaur¹
Summary (freely translated – original: Droemer Knaur¹):

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?

My Thoughts:

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.

bohnen3s
¹ http://www.droemer-knaur.de/buch/7768688/die-rosen-von-montevideo

Review – Inferno

~ Hanna ~ 1 Comment

Thanks to Lovelybooks and Random House UK (Bantam Press), I won a copy of Dan Brown’s Inferno.

Inferno
Image provided by Random House UK¹
Summary quoted from Random House UK¹:

“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.

My thoughts:

– 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.

bohnen3s

¹ http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/inferno/9780593072493

Review – The Humans by Matt Haig

~ Hanna ~ Leave a comment

Last night, I finished reading The Humans by Matt Haig which I won from The Book Depository.

Image provided by Canongate
Image provided by Canongate

 

Summary quoted from Canongate¹:

It’s hardest to belong when you’re closest to home . . .
One wet Friday evening, Professor Andrew Martin of Cambridge University solves the world’s greatest mathematical riddle. Then he disappears.
When he is found walking naked along the motorway, Professor Martin seems different. Besides the lack of clothes, he now finds normal life pointless. His loving wife and teenage son seem repulsive to him. In fact, he hates everyone on the planet. Everyone, that is, except Newton. And he’s a dog.
Can a bit of Debussy and Emily Dickinson keep him from murder? Can the species which invented cheap white wine and peanut butter sandwiches be all that bad? And what is the warm feeling he gets when he looks into his wife’s eyes?

My Thoughts:

The Humans is mainly set in Cambridge, England. The setting is very believable and realistic.

The book is written from the perspective of the person who took Andrew Martin’s body (let’s call him “the alien”). It is written in conversational style. As if “the alien” was talking to the reader, who, in his opinion, is one of his species. I think this is a very interesting and entertaining writing style, which is also very clever. This way, Mr Haig takes the reader by the hand and leads them right into the story. He makes them part of it instantly.

The main characters of The Humans are “the alien”, Andrew Martin’s wife Isobel and their son Gulliver. For me, they were all very easy to empathize with, especially “the alien” and Gulliver. I was able to follow “the alien’s” problems, his discoveries, his moral changes and his feelings throughout the book. I also had no problems understanding Gulliver’s teenage world and all the problems and feelings that he had. I could feel “the alien’s” and Gulliver’s relationship with all their highs and lows. I could also feel the relationship between Isobel and “the alien” but it wasn’t depicted as intensely as the relationship between Gulliver and “the alien”.

I really enjoyed the plot. It was a little predictable but had its twists and turns. I don’t think The Humans is a book you read for suspense, it is a book that is full of fun and creativity. The only thing I would have left out is the “Advice for a Human” list at the end. I didn’t really see a point in it and it was somehow boring. Other than that, I had great fun reading The Humans and I can fully recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read something different for a change.

bohnen4s

¹ http://www.canongate.tv/the-humans.html

Children’s Book Week – Review – A Bear Called Paddington

~ Hanna ~ Leave a comment

Hi there,

This week is Children’s Book Week and this is why I’d like to talk about one of my favourite children’s books, A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond.

Image linked from Amazon.com¹
Summary:

One day, the Brown family find a bear from Darkest Peru at Paddington Station in London. They decide to take him in and name him Paddington. That is when Paddington’s new life and his adventures start. He soon becomes part of the family. The children Jonathan and Judy enjoy Paddington’s company and Mrs. Bird, the housekeeper, quickly warms up to him. Paddington makes friends all over the place, his best friend being Mr. Gruber. The only person who can’t stand Paddington is the Browns’ neighbor Mr. Curry…

My Thoughts:

A Bear Called Paddington is set in and around the Browns’ house in London. The setting is very believable and nice and so are the characters. The stories are told by a third person narrator and usually revolve around Paddington, so the reader has a character to connect with.

The book is divided into short stories that are connected to each other and should be read in a consecutive order. In each story, Paddington usually learns something from his or others’ behaviour. So each story has its moral.

I really like A Bear Called Paddington because it is entertaining, easy to read and I think Paddington is simply cute. Also, I learned to read the time with Paddington when I was very young. This is a book I would recommend for both, children and adults 🙂

bohnen4s

¹ http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Called-Paddington-Michael-Bond/dp/1845093208/ref=tmm_pap_title_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1368796247&sr=1-3

Review – Some Kind of Fairy Tale

~ Hanna ~ 4 Comments

Today’s review is about Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale, which I won over at Buried in Books at the Fairytale Fortnight a few weeks ago 🙂 Thanks again Heather!!

Image linked from Doubleday Books¹
Summary quoted from Doubleday Books¹:

For twenty years after Tara Martin disappeared from her small English town, her parents and her brother, Peter, have lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. And then suddenly, on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents’ home and there, disheveled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It’s a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara’s story just does not add up. And, incredibly, she barely looks a day older than when she vanished.

My Thoughts:

Some Kind of Fairy Tale is set in a town in England and its surroundings and in a (parallel?) place where the so-called (or not called) fairies live. The England setting is really nothing special. The only image that somehow stood out for me was the Outwoods in spring while they were covered in bluebells. I liked Joyce’s description here but somehow, I still could not really smell the bluebells. As to the “fairy land” (I’ll just call it that way), I had problems connecting to it. Somehow the description of the setting did not feel complete for me. It did not really enchant me.

This is also something that I felt missing for some characters: completeness. There were quite a lot of characters involved in this story and it seems like Mr. Joyce could not make up his mind which characters were his main characters. Who were they? It is clear that Tara was one of them. But Peter? Richie? Jack? Mr. Underwood? Mrs. Larwood? Hiero? I could not connect to many of them because there seemed to be something missing.

As to the story, it is original, that is for sure. I really liked the idea and I really liked the outcome. What I did not like, was that it took me until chapter 10 to get into the story. That is almost 70 pages. When I chose this book, I was not interested in reading about a court case. I wanted to read about a fairy tale, or at least a fairy tale like story. I also did not want to read about a psychiatrist taking notes on a patient. These are two of the things that annoyed me most about this book: the court case and Mr. Underwood’s notes. The third thing has to do with writing style: Mr. Joyce hops around between perspectives all the time. Once you get into the story a chapter ends and you are in the head of another character again. This totally turned me off and was confusing. Of course, this technique works very well with 2 or 3 perspectives but with as many as Mr. Joyce used, it gets confusing.

All in all, Some Kind of Fairy Tale was a nice novel with an original story, that, unfortunately, was confusing and could have been an easier read, if only the writing style would have been different.

bohnen3s

¹ http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385535786

Review – The Snow Child

~ Hanna ~ Leave a comment

Today I’d like to review a book I’ve read a few months ago: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. This book still keeps me thinking.

Picture linked from eowynivey.com¹
Summary quoted from eowynivey.com¹:

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for a couple who have never been able to conceive. Jack and Mabel are drifting apart—he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone, but they catch sight of an elusive, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and leaves blizzards in her wake. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who seems to have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in the Alaska wilderness, life and death are inextricable, and what they eventually learn about Faina changes their lives forever.

My Thoughts:

I mainly chose to read this book because of its setting. I love the themes of wilderness and winter. And I love Alaska. What I also liked very much but what didn’t play a major role in the book, was that the book was set in the 1920s. Ms Ivey did a great job constructing the setting for The Snow Child. I really felt the cold and the woods. I could smell the trees, the water and the snow. And after all these months, I still can.

I also fell in love with the characters. I was able to empathize with all of them even though they were so different. This also brings me to the story. Especially Mabel changes with the arrival of Faina. She becomes a happier but sometimes more restless person. As a reader, I was able to feel all these emotions and never doubted them. Ms. Ivey writes a story full of joy and sadness. She manages to balance these two components and even though a feeling of loss has stayed with me since I’ve finished this wonderful novel, its storyline and setting are so beautiful that they will outbalance this feeling.

bohnen5s

¹http://eowynivey.com/snowchild/

Review – Sookie Stackhouse Series – Deadlocked

~ Hanna ~ Leave a comment

To all of you who don’t know the Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris, well, it’s basically a book series about a waitress from Bon Temps (a fictional town in Louisiana). Sookie is a special woman, because she can hear people’s thoughts. (And she has no idea why) The series starts when the vampires make their existence official to the human world. Soon, Sookie gets involved with her neighbour Bill, who is a vampire…

If you like paranormal romance, this is the series for you. It is full of vampires, werewolves, shifters and many more. There’s lots of mysterious things happening in Louisiana. And I love the Southern feeling you get while reading.

Reading order:

  1. Dead Until Dark
  2. Living Dead in Dallas
  3. Club Dead
  4. Dead to the World
  5. Dead as a Doornail
  6. Definitely Dead
  7. All Together Dead
  8. From Dead to Worse
  9. Dead and Gone
  10. Dead in the Family
  11. Dead Reckoning
  12. Deadlocked
  13. Dead Ever After
Today I’d like to talk about Deadlocked which is the 12th instalment in the series.
Picture linked from Penguin Group USA¹
Summary quoted from Penguin Group USA¹:

It’s vampire politics as usual around the town of Bon Temps, but never before have they hit so close to Sookie’s heart…

Growing up with telepathic abilities, Sookie Stackhouse realized early on there were things she’d rather not know. And now that she’s an adult, she also realizes that some things she knows about, she’d rather not see—like Eric Northman feeding off another woman. A younger one.

There’s a thing or two she’d like to say about that, but she has to keep quiet—Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), is in town. It’s the worst possible time for a human body to show up in Eric’s front yard—especially the body of the woman whose blood he just drank.

Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s set out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.

My Thoughts:

Deadlocked was not what I was hoping for. It started all right but it did never catch my full attention. Previously, I never wanted to stop reading a Sookie Stackhouse book, this time, it was always hard to pick it up again. I wasn’t really interested in finding out who killed the girl. I also wasn’t interested in reading more about what Sookie was doing on a day to day basis (shopping, cooking, checking her e-mails, not checking her e-mails,…). I wanted to read more about Eric. But there wasn’t much Eric in the book. There were hardly any relationships in the book. And it didn’t seem like any of the characters cared. It wasn’t like reading a book written in first person narration. I didn’t really feel much of a connection this time.

It seems to me like Charlaine Harris has used this book solely to get rid of a few characters and side plots, to prepare everything for the last book in the series. Unfortunately, she forgot that her readers appreciate a good story and some emotion… I was really looking forward to Deadlocked but unfortunately, it disappointed me.

bohnen3s

¹http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781937007447,00.html