Category Archives: World of Books

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit

World of Books December 27, 2011 Comments: 6

I’m already preparing myself for the movie to come out next year and even though I already read Hobbit 10-12 years ago, it was time to read it again.
I realized this after I started reading and noticed that the only things I remembered from the first time was that there were Bilbo and Gandalf, trolls, dwarves, Gollum and the ring and a dragon. I managed to forget every single detail.

Including that the tone of the story is much lighter than The Lord of the Rings and many times goes for funny. Also, the whole story is told from the narrator’s point of view, even when thoughts and speech are coming from the characters.

All together it’s a nice, light introduction into what is to come next. So much so that I kept wondering how in the world did the Hobbit author manage to evolve that world so much to come up with the rest later. Although it seems LotR was written at almost the same time (or very soon after).
This just proves I will need to read LotR again soon. 🙂

Anyway, The Hobbit is a fantasy story of a quest to which Bilbo only reluctantly agrees to (as their resident burglar) and the dwarves and Bilbo have all sorts of extraordinary adventures from which he returns changed (and richer).
We also learn of the goodness and resilience the hobbits display and it’s easy to agree with their matter-of-fact world view (at least I hope so, I don’t think some would be as generous of both spirit and material things as Bilbo is).

There is one thing about Hobbit though, although not as strongly presented, that is a continuing feature of all Tolkien work (I’ve read so far) – there is always a tragic part to the story.

Which makes me wonder what will they do about that in the movie…?

Melissa Darnell: Crave

World of Books October 24, 2011 Comments: 2

If you asked me why I love YA so much, I couldn’t give you an answer.
I’m not sure myself.

Is it because teenagers are full of emotions and anxiety and want to be adults but still retain the childlike in them?

Because I can no longer imagine my inner life going through so many emotional turmoils – I really don’t have the energy left for it. 🙂

But, I enjoy reading about young people having adventures in the style of Romeo and Julia. Because this story reminds one of those lovers.
Tristan and Savannah were forbidenn in fourth grade to ever have any contact with each other. And until then, they were best friends.
Nobody though bothered to explain the reason to them.

The things I really loved about this book were:

– the fact the story is told both from Tristan’s and Savannah’s point of view (I always miss the male perspective, because honestly, I can’t begin to imagine what might be going through their heads)

– the witch is the guy and the vampire is the girl (usually it’s always the opposite)

– absolutely loved the part where Savannah’s mother is explaining magic to her and saying that only in post Harry Potter world is magic cool and fun 🙂

– even though Savannah struck me at first as blinded and unrational, she did come to the conclusions I wanted her to understand eventually, so I guess, I can’t take fault with that ( she is 16 after all and finding her place in a completely new world)

It’s been a while since a YA love story gripped me so much.
And the star-crossed lovers of modern America are to appear in books 2 and 3.

The problem though is – it won’t be soon enough. 🙂

Kasey Michaels: A Midsummer Night’s Sin

World of Books October 18, 2011 Comments: 2

Being a romance novel lover, I’m always on the lookout for new authors to read. Unfortunately as my romance taste is rather specific, those writers tend to be few and in between.

But I found a new one! Kasey Michaels. And had so much fun reading. 🙂

The main male character is Puck (nickname). He is fun and games personified and also lovable and loving when he falls in love.
In this case, the woman he falls in love is intelligent and has a healthy sense of humour which is needed if you plan on spending time with Puck.

The problem they face is white slavery. That unfortunately is a problem we still face today so I was glas to see K. Michaels showing it in rather grim manner in this novel.
I love to read to get lost in imagined worlds but we shouldn’t forget that the world we live in, is generally not a  nice one.
And Regina’s world won’t be rocked just by that.

I loved the intelligent conversations and all the Shakespearian connotations.
And as this is the middle novel of the three Blackthorn brothers, I have something to go back to and something to look forward.
And Jack’s story is definitely something to look forward… 😉

Nalini Singh: Lord of the Abyss

World of Books October 14, 2011 Leave a comment

I’ve been hearing the name Nalini Singh for ages now, but I never seemed to get around to actually read one of her books.
Now I have Netgalley to thank for my first opportunity. 🙂 Loved it too.

By the end of the book, I realized it’s part of the series as it brings together brothers and a sister in order for them to save their land and the Lord of the Abyss is the youngest one so the others had to come before.
Now, I’ll have to go back and read from the beginning (what a terrible chore!). 😉

Anyway, I can’t help but put in some slight, possible spoilers.

Lord of the Abyss reads to me like a beauty and the beast story. Only in this case, the beauty is ugly, and the beast is beautiful and only gets beastly when the curse is upon him (which isn’t often).

In retrospect, for a book that is romantical fantasy, it actually got me feeling quite strongly (and by that I mean the actual feeling of my stomach clenching in certain situations).
N. Singh certainly painted the childhood of Liliana in such dark and gruesome details that I shivered and almost cried with incredulity that she would do something so awful to such a good character in her book. But unfortunately, it did fit with the father. 😦

Micah, or the Lord of the Abyss is an interesting character because he has many traits that I would detest if they weren’t combined in him with kingly ethic and goodwill toward all the people and the land. And his lover.  They seem to be, character-wise, made for each other.

I really enjoyed the destroyed world of Elden (they only got to fix it in the end, like I said, last book in the series) and I also think that because this was the last book, I lost some of the world building which probably happened in the beginning but I didn’t have a problem following the story (did wonder a bit about parts of the world they inhabit).

Basic line is, I am happy I got introduced to N. Singh’s novels and I want to read more – starting with Royal House of Shadows 1 (which btw I just realized wasn’t written by her but is a series written by some other authors I wanted to get to know). 🙂

M.J.Rose: In Session

World of Books October 12, 2011 Leave a comment

This is a short story collection I am very happy to have stumbled upon because it features several characters whohave series of their own but are brought together in these stories in order for the book to promote and support David Baldacci’s Wish You Well Foundation, which supports family literacy.

Of the characters, I’ve only read Jack Reacher novels. His story in the book is called Knowing You’re Alive where he helps Dr. Snow (whose series I now want to read very, very much) wait for the ambulance and police after a bombing by telling her a story.
Bear in mind that Dr. Snow is a sex therapist so all the stories concern the topic.

I’ve read Steve Berry’s The Romanov Prophecy, but Cotton Malone somehow escaped me, so now I got to know this bookstore owner (now, of course he wasn’t that before), I want to know more about his adventures.

There is one more character appearing in the stories that Dr. Snow talks to (not in the capacity as a sex therapist with any of them, it’s just her nature to look at people like that) is John Rain – a character by an author I’ve never had any contact with before – Barry Eisler.
John Rain is an assassin but I believe that is the most visible thing he is – it seems he is a  mystery waiting to be unraveled by an avid reader (like me). 🙂

I’m very much looking forward to getting to know all these characters better thanks to these stories.

Stephanie Laurens: The Reasons for Marriage

World of Books September 12, 2011 Leave a comment

One good thing that comes from my Kindle (well, there are many but this one is the important one for this post) is that I browse and get recommended some long lost titles. 🙂

I’ve been a fan of Stephanie Laurens for a long, long time but not as far as 1995. (if I remember correctly  the year this was published).
And there are definitely some noticeable differences between this romance novel and the ones that came later. And the main character being a rake isn’t one of them. 🙂

I’d say she drew on Pride and Prejudice when starting this novel. The main character, being a duke, is very, ha, can’t say egotistic because he is not intentionally mean, but being an extremely handsome and intelligent man (and a duke!) he can do and get pretty much anything he wants and love is not a word he recognizes as part of his vocabulary.
Honestly, he comes off so high-handedly aloof that I wondered how was SL going to show us he can fall in love. Because that’s what all good rakes do. First they gather enough sexual experience to last them a dozen lifetimes and then they fall in love with intelligent beauties and are forever their loving husbands.

In the meantime, you get a lot of easy, fun banter and steamy sex scenes.

Only, this time around, there are no steamy sex scenes in this novel. And that is the main difference between this novel and later works by Stephanie Laurens.
Not that I find the book lacking because of it, quite the contrary, it made me tear up due to emotion (which doesn’t happen when steamy scenes are involved for some reason). 🙂

P.S. One of the families visiting is called Darcys. 😀

Tess Gerritsen: The Silent Girl

World of Books August 29, 2011 Comments: 2

I thought it was only perfumes, but it seems to now apply to books I read as well. I want to talk about them and my mind is full of ideas, but when it comes to writing them down, nothing smart comes out.  Well, nothing even remotely close to what is in my head at least.

I really should learn how to turn my thoughts into better stories. I’m sure there are workshops that can teach you that (I mean, nowadays there are workshops for practically anything).

So, this is the latest in the Isles & Rizzoli series. Btw, both Rizzoli and Isles from the TV series weren’t even close to what I imagined them in my mind, but I can work with Rizzoli actress. I like the way she looks and portraits Rizzoli. The Isles actress is not as strong and cool as the real Maura Isles from the books (at least from my perspective).

One thing I realized about Tess Gerritsen’s writing when it comes to this series is, that lately (I don’t remember that was happening in the beginning), there seem to be mythical/fantastic parts of the story creeping in but I know that in the end all that will have a realistic explanation. And it always does.
The best thing about it though, is that I can’t guess the explanation. 🙂 Or, who did it. Or, when it seems all clear, something new gets added. Absolutely thrilling!
And I do mean that. I’ve read enough crime stories and thrillers that when I watch TV,  I know who is the killer just watching the movie/series for 5 minutes.
So a book where I think I know, only to be proven wrong, and then I seem to be right but for all the wrong reasons, and I completely miss one of the biggest mysteries that gets explained in the end, well, I think those are the traits of a truly great storyteller. 🙂

And as you might have learned by now, I’m not going to go into describing the story. I’ll just say that from my perspective, the Silent girl from the title, is the one I forgot about keeping track but who kept the story together and was silent for decades.

P.S. Please, don’t start reading the series from this book, start at the beginning.

P.P.S I spend so much money on books, I do wish someone somewhere would feel sorry for me and send some over (of the kind I usually read). 🙂
Was that very selfish to wish for?

Lee Child: Die Trying

World of Books July 24, 2011 Comments: 4

As I’ve been reading for 25 years now (since I learned to read, I never stopped, so you can pretty much calculate my age from that), I must say I haven’t yet enountered such a character as Jack Reacher and this type of a crime/action story.

I find I have problems decribing what exactly do I mean by this. It’s true that Jack Reacher has qualities that might be a bit stretched as to be ascribed to one human only, but that might only be my non-military perspective. I honestly don’t know if military around the world employs such geniously varied and intelligent characters, but I keep thinking if they were so smart, they probably could choose better than military.
(am I prejudiced against military or what?) 🙂
The thing is, Jack Reacher did choose in the end against military and now drifts around USA and keeps getting into trouble completely accidentally. Which is how we get to read so many novels about him. 🙂

This one was really interesting as it got into the militia problems and the ways that might escalate into a national (and possibly then a world wide) issue.
The thing that I consider a testament of very good writing is the fact that when Reacher ends up killing some of the really bad characters, I felt vindicated. 🙂 I couldn’t stand those people still being alive and creating so much misery and doing torture. Does that make me a bad person? I mean, I know it’s fiction but, god, they really deserved to die. And not so fast.

And this came on the heels of the tragedy in Norway. What’s wrong with some people?! I just have no words to describe the depth of my disappointment in the mankind. And I can’t learn to live with it. I cannot forget or bury the knowledge and go on like everything is fine with the world. It obviously isn’t.
I mean, the novel I read is fiction, but what happened in Norway isn’t, and what happens in the novel isn’t really stretching the imagination far from some of the things that already happened.

I know we are never going to live in a Utopian world but I do wish we’d get at least a step closer to it and not always getting a step farther and farther away.

Sabrina Jeffries: The Forbidden Lord

World of Books July 8, 2011 Leave a comment

I have to say I am immensely happy that this whole genre exists (romance) because when my life gets too stressed, they are the ones I reach for.
Something easy to read and relax, without having to concentrate much on the intricacies of the story and possibly losing a crucial information along the way.

Ok, so, what I just wrote doesn’t sound particularly positive but that’s not how I meant it. 🙂

I’ve tried a lot of different romance authors but there are some I know I cannot go wrong with. And Sabrina Jefrries is one of them.
For some reason, I skipped the first novel in the Lords series as it sounded like there wasn’t aristocracy involved but as that couple is referenced in subsequent novels, I can see I’ll have to go back.
Not that that would be a hard thing to do. 🙂

So, the story is well, typical. 🙂 Wherein lies the beauty.

Jordan doesn’t believe in love, having bad experience of his parents marriage but meets a rector’s daughter Emily by accident and is intrigued by her but as that was an accidental  meeting, there’s not much chance of them meeting again.
That is, until she is forced into a scheme by a mean lord and has to play a part that goes against everything she believes in but has to do it to save her father.  Too complicated for me to explain but the story is easy and fun to read.

So much so in fact that I had tp start with the next one in the series, The Dangerous Lord even though I have exams to deal with.

James Rollins: The Devil Colony

World of Books June 30, 2011 Leave a comment

I feel reviewing Sigma series novels by James Rollins no longer serves any purpose. They are all good. 🙂

Equally good. If I had to name one that was my favourite, I’d always go with the last one in the series because that one would be the most fresh and action-packed in my mind.

I might put some spoilers in this but they will be small ones.

What I admire about Mr. Rollins is the research that obviously goes into every one of his books and the fact that he comes across so many different intriguing ideas and puts them together into a fictional story that could so very easily be true.

I want to know why I can’t read random facts and combine them in my head in such incredible scenarios?!
I mean, after reading how he combines them, it feels logical everyone should be able to. And that is in my mind a good sign that the research for the book and the writing were solid. Ok, that sounds lukewarm. They were more in the hot category than lukewarm.

I do wish I had more time on my hands so I could read the books recommended at the end of The Devil Colony. Those books were the basics from which this novel sprung.

And I’ll give you a quick idea of what’s it about. Again, the Guild and Sigma are opponents, Crowe Painter gets a more prominent role as this novel centers around Native Americans, Founding Fathers and nano technology.
If you can’t imagine how nano technology combines with the first two, read the book. Although, you should start at the beginning of the series in order to get the right idea.
But, if you did read the series so far, I’d also suggest reading the short story featuring Seichan – The Skeleton Key – as it’s a good lead into the novel.

And I finally got some answers about  Gray’s love life I was wondering about in the last book. So, it wasn’t Seichan in his bed by the end of the last novel (so mean of Mr. Rollins to tease us so) and the relationship between Gray and Seichan won’t bloom suddenly as this book was want to show but something is building there.
And this time, the kiss was on Gray’s initiative. Not that it counts a lot regarding the situation. (that was my spoiler for the day)