The Magic of Bookstores

I step over the threshold, letting the heavy door swing shut behind me. In front of me are a selection of small tables, each one piled high with books of every colour, genre and size. Lining the walls are shelves that touch the ceilings, painted midnight with more books on them than I could ever possible hope to have.

There is a quiet mummer of voices; a child asks his mother if he could have just one more book, a man holds a book out to his friend and I stand there, face slightly red from the cold, but warming to the sight of the books that wait for me.

I start to move in between the tables, being careful to avoid hitting both books and people. A quick glance at the bestsellers chart tells me that nothing much has changed in the past week, but then it so rarely does. Books move up and down steadily for months until they are finally past the bookshelf's capacity or until a well-known author makes their claim all over the chart when a new novel of theirs is released.

I step onto the escalator, the gentle whirring preparing me as I get closer and closer to my favourite section. The metal ends abruptly and I am thrown off into a midst of people looking at various biographies and sporting annuals. I meander around yet more tables, these only one book high to make the pieces of wood seem less crowded.

Then I turn a corner and I am on another escalator, this one travelling slightly faster than the other. I'm not sure if it actually is or if it is just the rise in my levels of excitement.

As I near the top I see the stripe of green paint that signifies how close I am. On reaching the top I take a sharp right and float between various cookery books. Slipping between a mural of cartoon children lounging in a tree while reading, careless, and an array of local history books, I find what I have been looking for.

My eyes are instantly drawn to the half price table; I can never resist a bargain. I start to search for various authors and titles, books that I have been after for a while, but have never had enough money on me when they are in stock.

Once I have worked my way around the table, I make a mental note of any books that have grasped my attention and move onto the next. As I travel round, I gently pry a few from their resting place to read a blurb or to submerge myself in the first few pages. Every time I put them back, I feel my heart clench in sorrow, but I remind myself that now I know about their existence I can always come back for them all when I have just that little bit more with me.

After reaching Z on the alphabetical shelves, I take a step back and remember the books that I made a mental note to go back to earlier. I work my way back round, but before I am even a quarter of the way round my circuit, I realise that I already have a lot of books resting on my forearms and if I haven't already passed my budget, then I will be doing so soon.

I sigh reluctantly and head over to the counter. Luckily there is only one person in the queue ahead of me and it isn't long before I'm resting the books on the smooth counter and reaching for my purse. The man serving me tells me that I have made a good selection and after I hand over my money in exchange for my purchases he says that he hopes I will enjoy them. I smile and give him my thanks before turning away from the counter; my purse considerably lighter, but a satisfying weight on my fingertips.

I opt for the stairs, hearing each beat of my shoes against the wood until I reach the ground floor once again. I pass the same tables and shelves, but a new selection of people. I push open the door and smile as the bitter winter air greets me.

-E

Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Of the many things I had heard about this book before reading it, most were raving reviews encouraging others to pick up this book and after reading it, I can not only say that I can see why, but I can also say that I am now part of that group. Cinder was such an amazing book to read and if you take anything from this review, it should be that.

Si-fi is one of the genres that I get on least well with and from the blurb of this book I worried that this book would be completely taken up with those aspects and that I would be overwhelmed by it all, but that was not the case. This book also had elements of romance, fantasy and a dystopian universe in which everything was different, yet it was the same as well. I was immediately taken in by the new world and characters.

This is the first book I have read where one of the protagonists is a cyborg and I personally think that it added so much to the book. It reflected today's society in the fact that Cinder was an absolutely brilliant person with a huge skill set, but none of that mattered to other people when they knew what she was; a cyborg. It is the same today in aspects of our lives and it's a real shame. By having Cinder's viewpoints on this at the forefront of our minds throughout the whole book it gave a different, yet still valuable, look at what she was experiencing.

Prince Kai was a character who I had to grow to like. At first I found him arrogant and the way it was described as 'all the girls in New Beijing liking him' put me off him quite a bit. Even though this is a completely different concept, I first imagined him as the guy in school that we all know who is more full of himself than a can of baked beans (obviously before they have been opened). Over the course of the book though, he proved himself to me through his actions and how he didn't always like being too serious; I think that more world leaders could do with adding sarcasm to their vocabulary. Then he had to ruin it by acting the way he did when he found out that Cinder was a cyborg. I seriously hope that was all an act or else I won't be able to forgive him.

Maybe the thing that I liked most about this book was how it played on the fairytale of Cinderella. From the evil step-mother to the looming ball to losing her foot on the staircase, it all just added something extra to a fairytale that I already loved. Incorporating it into the modern world was also something that I think was carried out flawlessly. Obviously more had to be added to the story to embellish it and there were some things that had to be changed to make the story work, but overall it was sublime.

The Lunar's are a race that intrigue me greatly. I really want to find out more about their back-story and their involvement with the people of Earth more than I want to find out about World War IV or anything like that. The little we got told in this book was a large enough taste for the moment, but in the next books in the series, I really want to learn more about them because they seem to be a very interesting, and deadly, group of people.

The only thing that I could nitpick about this book was the fact that as soon as I knew Cinder was a Lunar, I also knew that she would be the missing princess, even though that wasn't specifically written down. It was just a bit too obvious for my liking, but apart from that, I have no complaints.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the next book now, though I might rust from anticipation before then. (I'm so proud that I got that pun in there, you have no idea.)

(Goodreads parallel)

Review: The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead

I have spent a long time waiting for this book. A few years ago I got the first four books in the Vampire Academy series for Christmas and ever since I have always been wanting more, which has thankfully been delivered in the Bloodlines series. However, I have to say that I feel like I have fallen out of love with this series. Personally, I think that books can be ruined by there being too much sex and that, to me, was what happened in The Fiery Heart. It overwhelms the book and detracts from the storyline. That put me off the series in a way, but it did not in any way mean that I wasn't excited for this book - I still care about and love the characters.

Having this book from both Adrian's and Sydney's perspective meant that I felt a lot more involved in the storyline. I could know what was going on at two locations and be able to link things together when the characters may not have done. Sydney has been an inspiration to me since her first appearance in the Vampire Academy novels. She is smart and not afraid to show it, which is something that I admire because I always tend to hide my intelligence rather than flaunt it. Adrian has grown so much emotionally over the course of this series and it was particularly insightful to be able to have parts from his perspective when he was hearing his dead great-aunt talking to him and pushing him to do things that he probably shouldn't have been doing.

It was great to see the return of Alicia in this novel. She was a great villain in the earlier books, so it was a good surprise to see her return because of the power she wields and she has a real motive to get back at everyone. Thinking about the mischief she had caused brought some wonderful nostalgic memories back from the start of the series and meant that I knew, or had some sort of idea, what levels of danger everyone would be in. It brought tension and excitement in the race to save Jill.

Speaking of Jill, I feel like the characters had seemingly given up on her at the very start of this novel. There was not much detail given apart from 'we looked', which although was a good reminder that they hadn't sat around doing nothing, it was very vague and not fulfilling enough for me as a reader. Soon after the novel started though, the race to get to Jill was back on and I found it interesting to follow the clues which would eventually give some answers. I especially like how Sydney was smuggled out of Court, very clever and inventive.

I thought that having that storyline going parallel with the storyline about Olive might be a bit too much for one novel, but it provided an elegant distraction while things with Jill seemed to come to more dead ends. It also led to more discoveries about Adrian and Dimitri's families, which was an unexpected nicety. I will talk about Olive and Neil's relationship later, but I think that the possibility of couples such as Rose and Dimitri having children is something that I as a reader have always wanted, as I'm sure many other readers have, though I do have other opinions as well.

My main criticism of this book is that everything seemed to come together too well. I understand that Mead would want to tie the series off nicely, but it seemed to tie off too nicely. Almost everyone ended up as part of a couple and wanting to be married. It was bittersweet. Of course I was happy that my beloved characters had found someone and were moving ahead in their relationships, though I was left feeling that it was all too forced. A happy ending is lovely, but sometimes it's not fulfilling to a reader to have that sort of ending, especially after everything the characters have been though, the writer just finishing it off in a way that is more dreamlike than reality driven just wasn't what I personally wanted.

As well as that, I feel that I cannot not mention how unrealistic Olive giving birth alone in the woods was. Who cut the umbilical cord? How come Declan wasn't in the state that babies usually are in in such a short period after their birth? It was all just a bit too unrealistic for my liking and I know that some people aren't after that in a fantasy book, but to me it was off-putting from the storyline.

Finally, the flow of this book was not there. There were long paragraphs about travelling in the middle of chapters where it would have been better to break away from the characters, yet it just continued on, creating chapters that I felt like I was plodding through. If they had been broken up better then the flow would have improved.

Overall, I still loved this book and I am truly sad that our exploration into the Vampire Academy world is over, though I do feel like I have had a large enough taste.

(Goodreads parallel)

Review: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

On reading the blurb of this book, I imagined that Mia and Adam would meet in New York, have sex and then they would go their separate ways, leaving Adam to stew over everything that had happened for the rest of the book. However, this book was not that and I am so pleased with what it turned out to be.

I read 'If I Stay' while on a school trip to another country; the sad tones helping to distract me from the fears I was facing. 'If I Stay' was the sort of tragic high school romance book that could do that, but 'Where She Went' seemed to be something much more adult, something that you really had to plunge yourself into. Mia and Adam were no longer kids in high school facing the loss of their loved ones. Over the time that had elapsed between the two novels, they had grown, not past what had happened, but far enough away from it that they were starting to make sense of the situations they were in.

When the past and present overlap in a novel, it can sometimes be confusing. Yet, here each anecdote of a past event fitted in so precisely with what was happening in the present that it actually made the story fit together better. Having the past three years of Adam's life, as well as a few bits from before then, told while the story was still going on, I feel, was the best way to tell this tale because it gave a subtle understanding through the whole book, so you are left with the full picture at the end.

Having this book from Adam's perspective was one of the most interesting things with this novel, to me. He's older than Mia, has different likes, dislikes and interests and views the world differently to how she does. The phrase 'you never really know someone until you take a walk in their shoes' springs to mind and that is something that I absolutely loved in this novel. Adam is certainly not the perfect person, but by seeing what he sees and experiencing what he experiences, you can start to understand his imperfections.

With the majority of the book being set over two days, I would have thought that it would hold the novel back, yet here it was executed well. By the end of the night that Mia and Adam spent together, I felt that I understood the characters more than I would have been able to if it was set over a longer time period. It meant that I could perfectly justify their actions when they decided to drop everything, at least for a little while, for each other.

Overall, I adored this book, hence how I read it with such speed, but I could not give it five stars because I do not feel that it was a five star book. To be that, it has to have something extra that this book just did not give to me However, it has given me the best possible closure from the ending of the first book in this duology.

Though, I am left with one burning question; did Adam ever give that guy his iPod back?

(Goodreads parallel)

Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

This book is another that I bought quite a while ago, never got round to reading and I'm now regretting the time I spent not reading this book. It has everything that I would want in a book about witches and more.

This book starts off in the second person and I was so surprised by that that I had to put it down for a few seconds to process that. I am not saying that having something written in the second person is bad, I actually loved that part of this book was, but it is such a rare thing to see. I think this may be the first book that I have read that is partly in the second person, or that has the second person in it at all in fact. Having the start of the book written in this way was very important though because it signified part of Nathan's life and how he had to hold himself back, so when it switched to first person I could really notice the difference in his character.

When I started this book, I had almost no clue what was going on, but having a whole section of the book dedicated to Nathan's life before was a superb way of telling the story. It meant that I found out things as Nathan did and that I was able to relate to him much more as a character when the book came back to the present. I don't agree with some of the things he and others did while he was younger, but it was good to have some aspects of the characters that I didn't like because it meant that they seemed more real.

The world of witches that Half Bad makes itself a part of intrigues me greatly. In previous books that I have read about witches there has always been the idea of good versus evil, but with this book you are condemned to whether you will be good or bad from birth, which, although I find a little mean on both the Black and White witches, although mainly the Black, sets such clear boundaries that once you are over, you are well and truly over. The distinction is so clear that in a way it reminds me of the unfortunate views some people have about an entire race, age group or gender based on their experience with one person.

So much happened in this book that I was almost overwhelmed. I feel like I went on an incredibly long journey with Nathan and grew to know him as well as I know myself. As a result of its length, this book had many characters, but I feel that they were explored in enough depth as was appropriate. If you know everything about every character then a book can become boring and in a world such as this one, having secrets is important.

Even though I have rated this book as five stars, I would probably say that it is more accurately four and a half. There was nothing in particular that I can pick out as wrong with this book, just that it didn't totally do it for me. Sometimes you have to make a final judgement on a book based on feeling and although this book was absolutely amazing, I don't feel that it can be a full five out of five stars.

I am really looking forward to getting to read the second book in this series as I cannot wait to find out more about Nathan's life and journey through that.

(Goodreads parallel) 

Libraries

With very little money left after my present buying escapade last December and a dwindling pile of books in my 'to be read' pile, earlier this week I decided to take a trip to the library. The one closest to me has a teen section the extent of one shelf, most of the books having been already read by me because I have taken almost all of them out before. I didn't mind having to travel a bit further afield to go to a library that could satisfy my needs and actually quite enjoyed the trip, but some things about libraries do bug me.

I got four books and one manga out from the library, three of the books being sequels to books that I have previously read. Although I am very happy that these sequels were there so I could finish these series without spending too much money, only the bus fare there and back, on them, I was also disappointed that most of the books there were sequels.

Finding a book that you would quite like to read and then noticing that it is a sequel is always a bit annoying. If the first book is there then I will get both out so I can read them in succession, but there only ever seems to be the second or third book in a series there, never the first. On the rare occasions that there is I will grab the book with both hands before anyone else can get to it. I understand that other people will have taken them out to read them and I'm happy that they're having the experience of reading that book, but when I go over to the manga section and see that there are three copies of volume five of Death Note, but no others present, I start to question what the library is doing with the books.

Secondly, I cannot stand how many people treat library books. My grandparents use their local library to get books as after so many years of reading they have run out of space and we will often chat about what strange crumbs we find between the pages and how disgusted we are with the small rips and tears that we discover.

Personally, I treat books better than I do quite a few people. There are no dents in the spine, you will not find any of the pages curved or torn and you most definitely will not find me turning down pages to mark where I have got to! I know that we all treat books differently and that I can't expect everyone to be as careful as I am, but I would at least expect to be able to get books out that don't look as if they have been trampled on by somebody's dog.

Finally, people. I love finding people who share an interest in books with me. To be able to find someone with which I can connect over books is a sadly odd occurrence and libraries are often the place to find people with that common interest, but it is also the place to find people that you would rather avoid.

We all know of the librarian that will judge you from the moment you walk in the door, the mother or father who will let their child run rampage and the people who shout across the library like they're at a concert. Of course most librarians are lovely and helpful, most parents just want their children to find an interest in books and most people are happy to look at the books quietly, but there are always a few that choose to spoil that. It's a shame that they choose to do so, yet it seems that we are incapable of stopping them. While I find this a lesser problem than the other two, it can leave a sour overcoat on a particular library.

Even though this post has been about the things that I dislike about libraries, I would never want anyone to get the idea that I do not like them. I think it is wonderful that we are that trusting with books and that it means that they are available to more people, so I wouldn't want that to change for anything! Though, there is nothing quite as good as finishing a book you have really enjoyed and being able to put it on your own bookshelf and knowing it will always be there for you to go back to at a second's notice.
-E

Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This book has been sitting on my shelves for months, just waiting for me to pick it up and read it and I have to say that I regret leaving so much time in between when I bought this book and actually reading it.

From the very beginning, I was transfixed. A prologue that leaves you with questions about what happened to the main characters when they were younger really set me off on a course to read this book well because from those first few pages I was already invested in the character's lives.

On the cover of the copy I own there is a quote from Veronica Roth that says "Unlike anything I've ever read." and to me that describes this book perfectly. I have never before read about concepts like these and from the Shadow Fold to the Grisha themselves, I was taken in by all of them because they were like nothing I had read before.

Firstly, the Shadow Fold. We are introduced to it right at the start of the book so we know immediately the threat it poses to the characters and how it is a work of pure evil. The volcra being a work of the Shadow Fold added to the tension because of what they could do. Not only are the characters having to try and navigate in complete darkness, but there is also the threat of being killed by huge winged creatures that live there. Even though for most of the book we were far away from the Shadow Fold, the threat of it still loomed because of our powerful glimpse of it at the start of the book. That threat and danger would always be present, not matter what distance there was between you and it.

The Grisha were another aspect of this book that really intrigued me. Whether their powers were possible through the Small Science or magic, the only thing that makes the difference to me it how they were able to use their powers. Although, the hierarchy within their own separate class to normal humans was also interesting to me, especially as the seating arrangements at meal times slightly reminded me of my own school lunches. This book made me want to be a Grisha in a way, though some of them seem to be far from nice because of their power.

Russia is a country that has always interested me. As in the country that Shadow and Bone is set in does, it has a history of corruption, beauty and an obsession with being in control. The ideas from Russia were clearly visible, but they fitted in this world perfectly and added something extra to the book rather than having it be something that I as this reader could not relate to.

Alina is a main character who I couldn't help but love. She went from nobody to somebody in a matter of days, but tried to stop it from getting to her. She was afraid of not fitting in because she was scared that she wouldn't be beautiful enough, but really she was more frightened of the unknown that awaited her. Although she let herself be misled romantically, she managed to go back to herself and gain something from the experience. Everybody makes mistakes and even though hers would cost a lot more than just herself something, she still tried to do what was best and that was what was most important to me about her.

When you are introduced to a male best friend you automatically know in books these days that he is going to be some sort of romantic interest, which is a shame, but I have to say that in this book, I was not disappointed with Mal. He was brave and fought for Alina when she needed him to most and that's why I think that he is better than a lot of other male protagonists. You could tell when Mal and Alina came together once again that something had changed between them and that Mal had developed as a character much more than I expected him to when I started reading this book.

I could talk in depth about the other characters, especially the Darkling and Genya because even though I loved the latter dearly, she should have taught Alina that the former was not someone to be trusted because I believe that it would have been quite clear to see Alina's feelings toward him. My personal advice would be to never trust someone who doesn't tell you their actual name. I digress. Overall I think that each character was explored in enough depth so I could decide whether  I liked or trusted them, but not so much that I was overwhelmed and it detracted from the storyline.

I'm sure there are a few faults with this book as there are with every book, but I personally could not spot them because I was so drawn into the story and characters. This is the best book that I have read in a long, long time and I now can't wait to get the second book!