I didn’t read very much this month. I am in this limbo that occurs everytime one procrastinates on important things, so one doesn’t allow oneself to read books but instead surfs the internet the whole day. Yes, that one. Continue reading
I aged and my family gave me books for it Continue reading
Seraphina: The Audition
Lena’s rating: 4 of 5 stars
Published: June 2012
Copy: Free on Scribd
In this prequel, Seraphina auditions for the position as music assistant and tutor at court that she holds in Seraphina (#1). You get to see how her relationship with Princess Glisselda, crucial to book #1, is formed and takes its first steps. You also get more uncle-niece interactions between Orma and Seraphina, this time without impending doom hanging over their heads, highlighting Orma’s odd behaviour in a quirky way. Continue reading
Beware, Lena has decided to try this book meme thing once more, because the ideas for this one just kept flowing and aaaaahrg brain stahp. This week, as you can see, is all about the character arcs and development. Continue reading
New cover. Image from Random House US.
Seraphina
Lena’s rating: 4 of 5 stars
Published: July 2012
Copy: Bought
“Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high. Continue reading
Recently I have started to read more German fiction again – only a bit – but that inspired me to blog about my favourite German books. But then I sat down, motivated to do one blogpost about this and it quickly exploded into five posts so whoops. This week will only be a preliminary ramble about why I actually read so much in English. The posts that actually contain books will come on Sundays in March.
I am actually German. I hope that’s not too obvious by my English *flails* Nevertheless, most of the books I read I read in English. This hasn’t always been the case, of course. In school I read everything in German, unless it was for English class and even then, I’m pretty sure that for homework I preferred the German translation of Hamlet in the bilingual edition we read in my English class. It just saved a lot of time, sorry, Ms Schulz. But when I started university and met the boyfriend who had been reading English books for forever (perspective of a 20 year-old talking here) I got interested and started to read English fiction in English. Continue reading
The Giggler Treatment
Lena’s rating: 3 of 5 stars
Published: October 2013
Copy: Library
This is a book about a man, who is about to step into poop – but will he or won’t he? You know how adults step into dog poo? That is the Giggler Treatment. The Gigglers punish adults who are mean to kids, and they like to use the dog Rover’s poop to do so (because it’s the best poop around, if you were wondering). Continue reading
Image from Macmillan US.
Fairest
Lena’s rating: 3 of 5 stars
Published: January 2015
Copy: Bought
The Lunar Chronicles are fantasy with science-fiction elements fairytale retellings (the author lovingly calls them ‘space opera’ ;D), of which as of now, three books are out: Cinder (reimagining Cinderella’s story), Scarlet (Little Red Riding Hood), and Cress (Rapunzel). Winter (Snow White), the forth and last book in this series, is expected to come out in November 2015. Fairest fits into this series as a kind of prequel, a story about the evil queen in Snow White, in this case called Levana.
Who is Levana, how did she become queen on Lunar and the horrible villain we know her as? This short novel answers all these questions. Fairest is a lot darker and more twisted than the three novels that went before it. And while it’s just as readable as Marissa Meyer’s other books, it is not at all cute or fun like the books before were. Continue reading
We are halfway through the first Continent Read-a-thon month and I thought I might do a little halftime summary of what has happened so far. If you want to catch up on what I was planning to read during this month you can look at my Africa TBR.
For my part, I haven’t read as much as I wished. Continue reading
Image from HarperCollins UK.
We Should All Be Feminists
Lena’s rating: 4 of 5 stars
Published: January 2014
Copy: Bought
We Should All Be Feminists is an essay that was adapted from a TED talk Adichie gave in 2013 about the topic of feminism. It is available as ebook or in paperback.
Adichie neatly and without pathos sums up what feminism is all about, what it means today (because haven’t we gotten past most of the inequality?) and how feminism actually is not only about women. Continue reading
Study in Ink 