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Books and Clevernesshttps://rdietz07.wordpress.comI am a creative writer and editor looking for a nice quiet place to put my thoughts! I love books, dogs, and knitting!
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A Brief Update

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Hello blog family! I’d like to give you all a brief update on The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon. The reading itself is going rather slow since I only read at night before bed, and I’ve been ready to pass out the second I hit the mattress. That said, I am passed the halfway mark!!

I have to say that I’m sad that the reading is going so slowly (especially since I read the first book, The Bone Season, in three days because I read it nonstop) but I’m kind of excited about it too. It’s like watching all of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies, but only one per couple of days, so you spend all day wondering what’s going to happen next. It’s that same cliffhanger type book and I’m only just over halfway done! So good.

The book has been incredible. I don’t want to jinx it yet, but so far I like this book even better than the first. It picked up exactly where it left off which I always think is a really cool way of starting a sequel IF you can do it right. The concept seems simple: wherever you left off, just pick up from there. But it seems like authors tend to get a little mixed up when they do that. I can understand it in some ways: you work really hard to have a cliffhanger ending – to make it stand out so the reader wants to read more immediately- that it’s hard to just pick up where you left off. It’s much easier to start the book a day or two after where the novel ended, or even in J.K. Rowling’s case for all of her Harry Potter books, it started right around Harry’s birthday, about a month after the ending. But when it’s done right, the author is able to convey an exciting start to the new book. That’s what has happened here.

Both of Samantha Shannon’s book are about 500 pages, so they’re long books to begin with, with a lot of content. But what she is able to do – which I think all writers aspire to be able to do – is write 500 pages of quality content that just makes you want to know more. This book just has it all, so far. I absolutely love it. If you’re looking for a light read, this isn’t it – it’s complex, it’s often very dark, and it has so many different terms and sayings that there is a glossary in the back of the book. But if you can read it, you will get so into it you won’t want to put it down. I only do so very reluctantly. Damn you sleep!!!

I’ll give you a whole bunch more information when I’m done with the book. But until then, I will give you my favorite line of the entire book so far. I read this line and thought “wow, that was an amazingly written sentence.”

“Dark blood was spilling from his neck, and no wonder: his head was nowhere to be seen.”

Until next time, ladies and gentlemen! Happy reading!

Rachel

Books I Want To Read Part 1

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It occurs to me that I’ve told you to read books, but I haven’t told you what books I look forward to reading! It’s weird because I read a lot of books, but I also have a HUGE amount of books that I buy in bulk purchases that I want to read and haven’t gotten the chance to… yet. This will have to be separated into a couple of parts because there’s no way I can cover them all in one blog post.

That said, I’d like to talk about the first book I’ve been wanting to read: Samantha Shannon’s The Mime Order which I’ve been waiting for, for over a year, has FINALLY arrived!!! I told you a bit about The Bone Season, and I told you I’ve been waiting for her new book to arrive at my house so I can read it. Well, I pre-ordered the book online about a little more than a month ago to make sure I’d get a copy the day it came out. On January 27th, the day The Mime Order came out in stores and online, I got an e-mail saying that my shipment had been delayed. I was sad, but I figured that it would ship the next day and then I’d be all set with my new book for overnight shipping. Nope. It took until January 31st for them to ship me my book, and I got it three days ago, February 2nd. I was very frustrated, but I have it now, so let bygones be bygones. I am so ecstatic that it has finally arrived, though! You’ll all be getting a review of the book as soon as I’m done!!

Now onto some of the books I want to read:

  • This second one is embarrassing that I haven’t read it yet, but I really want to read it!! The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. My last post mentioned the book Let it Snow by a trio of authors, one of whom is John Green. If his other books are anything like what he wrote in that novel, I will love this book. Everyone already seems to love both the book and the movie, so I really need to read it ASAP. Sorry John Green lovers! I’ll read it as soon as I can! (And maybe make a book vs movie in the process!!)
  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Another book turned movie that I have yet to read. The movie looks amazing, and I contemplated seeing the movie first, but then decided against it (just FYI, I could write an entire blog about that alone. It’s such a tough decision!!!) I honestly don’t know too much about the novel except that there’s a murder and they’re trying to figure out who killed the person. But everyone has said that the book is amazing with a million plot twists, so I’ll give it a shot!
  • The next book, All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman, looks amazing. It’s about a a boy who has superhero friends, and marries a superhero. But one of her ex-boyfriends hypnotizes her so her husband is invisible. The husband then has a limited amount of time to get her to see him or she never will see him. It seems like such a weird concept that it HAS to be amazing. I’ve heard great things about it, so I look forward to reading it.
  • The last book that I reeeeeally want to read is the first of a series: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for so long. Every time I see it I say, “Oh! I’ll read that next!!” and then I get distracted by shiny objects and forget about it for a while. From what I gather of the book, it follows a girl whose family comes from a long line of witches. She finds an old alchemy book that awakens all types of demons and monsters and other sinister things and she’s the only one who can stop them. It looks so good. This is really the exact type of book I love to read most, and it’s even a series!! I can’t wait to read it. Soon… soon…

So that’s it for now, I have so many more to tell you, but I know if I keep going it’ll be a list of 30 books I want to read. So I’ll split this up and keep you posted on some stuff I want to read as it comes along. I hope you’re all enjoying the first of the next six more weeks of winter! Has it been six weeks yet?

Until next time!

Rachel

Let it Snow

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With the snow forcing me to stay inside for the day, I can’t help but think about all the comfy, cozy books that I’ve read that would be perfect for a snow day.

So without further ado, here is a short list of the best books to read during a snowstorm.

1. Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle. This book is written in three parts, each by a different author. It chronicles three different people and their journeys through a really bad snowstorm on Christmas Eve. This was the perfect book to read during the holidays, and it makes you feel all warm inside when you read it. While I’m sure some of you don’t love young adult books, this is really a feel-good novel that is perfect for the snow.

2. My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler. A witty memoir about the New Jersey-born comedienne Chelsea Handler and her life as a sex enthusiast. It’s a great book if you want to sit and laugh for hours (who doesn’t??) This is the first of Handler’s five books, published back in 2005 (10 years ago! Holy crap!) This is probably my favorite of her books, and I think it’s the most well written. It’s a smaller book, with just over 200 pages, so it goes by quickly! A perfect book for a dreary snow day.

3. The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Everyone knows of the stories: Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Briar-Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty) – they are very well known and often the bed time stories for children. However, the Grimm fairy tales are just that – grim. While Disney may have turned these stories into movies for kids to look up to, the original stories are really not for kids. Each tale has a moral and a theme, just like any other fairy tale. However, the way the brothers get to the moral is often extremely disturbing. Thus, I’d like to recommend this book, as long as you don’t plan to read it to your kids without reading it first yourself! The collection is very fun to read, though. It’s interesting to see what the REAL stories are, and how they’ve been changed through the ages. My favorite of the collection is Rapunzel. It’s a complete turnaround from the story we know already and, for me, it’s the most interesting to read of the collection.

Well, I think that’ll be enough books to hold you over for the day! If you’re in the New Jersey or tri-state area like I am, I hope you’re all keeping warm and safe! Watch out for that flash freeze!

What are you waiting for? Read!!

Rachel

Are You There Gods? It’s Me, Percy.

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After watching an older HBO show, Rome, with my boyfriend last weekend (which is a great show, by the way!) I started thinking about a certain set of books that had a sort of eerie, fantastical tone about them: the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan.

I love young adult novels. I think they’re a great read – fun to read along to, with exciting stories usually about magic or mysteries, or in this case, the Gods of Olympus. I could read them nonstop all day. The combination of my love of reading and of Greek mythology (or Greek religion, if you will) is a sure-fire way to get me to read a book — as if I needed a reason!

The series begins with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. After finding out he is a demigod, the son of Poseidon, he is taken to a camp filled with other demigods where he can finally be himself. He makes new friends, and even meets a minor god in the Greek religion — and then a prophecy tells him that he must go on a quest to retrieve one of Zeus’ lightning bolts. Hijinks ensue, alliances are broken, and the villains of the series start to form. It’s a spectacular first book, with a great cliffhanger. The series just gets better with each book. It actually felt like the series was one continuous Greek myth that I was learning about for the first time. The writing was simple, but funny. You really feel as though you’re Percy going on these adventures.

After five books, Riordan finished off the Olympians series and focused on a couple of his other novels. He must have missed the characters, though, because he came out with a spin-off called The Heroes of Olympus. The Heroes of Olympus focuses more on the Roman gods, which were originally taken from the Greek religion. For example, the big ol’ lightning man himself, Zeus, is actually called Jupiter in Rome; and his wife, Hera, is called Juno. Roman religion was really just an amped up, angrier, more war-driven religion with nearly all the same gods and demigods as the Greek religion.

The first book in the novel The Lost Hero begins with a boy in a purple shirt on a field trip where he is attacked by mythological creatures, along with his best friend Leo and girlfriend Piper. Unfortunately, he has no memory of who he is, how he got there, or what that tattoo on his arm is about. He soon finds out that there is another camp, much like the camp that Percy Jackson found his home, but with the children of the Roman gods. The Roman gods are actually the same gods as in the Percy Jackson series, but almost with split personalities. It’s all incredibly interesting.

As with the previous series, there is a prophecy and a quest and the main character, Jason, must be the leader of it. Unlike the previous series, where the book was centered on Percy, this book is written by three different people. Jason, Leo, and Piper. The characters each alternate their chapters and pick up right where the last chapter left off. In the next book, we find our beloved hero Percy also unaware of who he is, where he’s from or how he got there while again being attacked by monsters. This book rotates characters for the chapters just like the last novel, but with new characters. It’s not until the third book that there are an array of characters from both books as the narrators of the chapters.

I would say during the third book I got kind of bored. I felt like I had been through these quests so long that it was more tedious than exciting. Each book had the same ebb and flow, starting with a quest, going on an adventure, almost getting killed, and then being fine. It was all the same. But about three quarters into the book Riordan started to get his steam back. I won’t tell you too much, because you have to read it for yourself! But it got SO good!

So my recommendation: if you love mythology, if you like young adult novels, if you like adventures, or even if you just like a fun read, these are the books for you. Remember though, if you feel like it’s getting a bit tedious, think of it like the How I Met Your Mother gag with The Proclaimers song, 500 Miles. You can listen to it over and over and over and eventually you get tired of it, but it always comes back around, stronger than ever.

And I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more…. Da da da! Da da da!

Is the song stuck in your head yet?

I’m still trying to figure out how many blogs per week I’ll be posting. So until I’ve figured it out, I’ll just post whenever I feel like it ;-P

Until next time!

Rachel

Book vs. Movie: Unbroken

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Ah, yes. The age old debate. Which was better? The book or the movie? This is a tough question because in most cases I find that the people who enjoyed the book they read, find it incredibly difficult to keep a truly open mind about the movie. Why? Because we read it first before it was popular! It’s childish — maybe a little bit “hipster” to say we read it first before it was cool, but that’s the way it is. Chronic readers have this shared goal with one another: to read as many books as possible, as quickly as possible. So when we read a book that comes out and then three years later they start advertising the movie, we’re all like, “hey! I read that book!!” and tell everyone we possibly can that we’ve read that book first.

I do this all the time. The most recent case is for the new movie Unbroken. This a very sensitive case for me because a) I truly loved the book; B) I truly loved this man’s story; And c) they changed the name completely!!! The book I read, written by Louis Zamperini and David Rensin, called Devil at My Heels, was Zamperini’s first book about his real life triumphs and tribulations before, during and after World War II. I won’t spoil the movie or book for anyone, but this man endured being in the 1936 Olympics in Germany and meeting Hitler, being lost at sea, and being taken into a Japanese prison camp… And he lived to tell the tale.

The book was spectacular. I thought it had the right amount of conversational tone, without the topics he was discussing being taken lightly, or as something to shrug off your shoulders. It had an important message about forgiveness, but it wasn’t preachy. It was just an all around amazing story and novel. So when I began seeing trailers for the new movie Unbroken that Angelina Jolie had directed, I was thrilled. I figured, ‘hey, they changed the title, but the title of the book is a bit long for a movie, so that’s understandable.’ That was until I went to Barnes and Noble and found the newly published book called Unbroken, rewritten and published to suit the movie! Furious. I was furious. How could they do such a thing? Take this man’s life story and rewrite it to make the movie more money? On a logical, business side I completely understand it. I’m sure a lot of the money the movie and this new book makes is going straight to the recently deceased man’s family, which is admirable. But as a reader, and someone who loved the book, I was disappointed.

That said, my boyfriend and I went to see the movie together when it came out and I was actually really excited. Despite my disappointment of the new book, I still loved Louis’ story and thought anything Angelina Jolie directed must be amazing. So I had a really open mind. To my surprise, it was nearly exact to the book. They left out little pieces, and most of the end when he crusades for religion, but I can understand that – religion is a touchy subject. But it was a great movie.

So, now I have a dilemma. Book versus movie.

The verdict is not surprising: Book! Book! Book! But I have to say, this one gave me a run for my money. Even with my appreciation for the movie – the effects, the way it was shot, and, of course, the actors (who were amazing, by the way) – it still didn’t cut it for me.

First book vs movie tally? Book: 1 Movie: 0

Until next time, read to your hearts content!!!

Rachel