Quote of the Week #6

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This week let’s make it two quotes, from the same book “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman. This week’s quotes is brought to you by me travelling, to my childhood city this summer and I do not agree with the first quote. Once I did, but your surroundings has a lot to say, and your ability to influence them. In my old city I was unhappy, for reasons outside of my ability of control. I brought some of these reasons to the new city, I also gathered a few new ones, but the worst ones were left behind. Was it right to move? Who the fuck knows, but that’s something you could say about most decisions in life. So I included the second quote to balance it out a bit, “leave no path untaken” sounds lovely, but doesn’t really exist either does it? With every choice you make there’s A LOT of paths untaken, but you know- sometimes you got to try different paths just to see where they lead you. 

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A Mage’s Power by Casey Wolfe | Review

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Pages: 270

Genre: urban fantasy, lgbt (m/m)

 

Synopsis

Rowan is a prodigy of magic, he’s taken two out of five masters in the Schools of Magic and set up an enchantment shop – named “Charmed to Meet You”! His only friend (outside of school) is a werewolf named Caleb, who consider him part of his pack. They’re both gay.

Shaw works for the Inquisition, the organization charged with policing the magical races collectively known as magicae. Recently, it has come under scrutiny as magicae begin to disappear and reports of violence increase. With secrets of his own on the line, Shaw is willing to risk everything to find out just what is going on behind all the locked doors.

When Rowan and Shaw are entangled in each other’s worlds, it becomes evident that their hearts are as much at risk as their lives. They must find the truth and stop a conspiracy before it’s too late.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: four stars

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It was a fun and easy read, I picked up the book and then almost didn’t put it down as I read the story in a couple hours. A couple times I stopped just wondering why I was still intrigued, because nothing much was going on. Rowan comes out of his shell a bit as Caleb and Shaw forces him to look up from his textbooks and work long enough to go out with them. It hit a bit too close to home as he lists his interests and I’m noting down that I need to go out more myself. Still it takes skill to write so good characters, this book had a cozy atmosphere and I enjoyed reading their banter. Shaw and Rowans relationship moved quickly, which left me wondering where the author would go from there. But they let Shaw and Rowan keep just enough secrets for themselves, for reasons that seemed natural like building up trust, and it worked out and fit with the plot. Caleb was definitely my favourite character as he’s a bit snarky and wilder, but also protective and just cool. I think I liked this book because of the same reason as I liked “The Raven Cycle” by Maggie Stiefvater – it’s more the characters than the story.

A trio of one mage, one werewolf and a newcomer witch, all gay, walks into a bar ... and they become bestfriends and have a good time for the most part. That’s how I view this book. There was spent a lot of time early on in the book to set up the world and Shaw and Rowans groups and daily life, towards the end it’s more action in a very satisfying way. I like how Rowan is a prodigy in magic because of talent and that he works hard, but he’s still has flaws and more to learn.

While I was reading this book I found the lack of action in the beginning somewhat boring along with a few predictable twists, like I knew who the dark witch they were looking for was going to be. But afterwards, thinking back, this book just gives me this warm cozy feeling that even I can’t explain. It has grown on me? I think and hope this book needed time to set up and that I’ll get to read more plot unfold in the second book.

 

some favourite quotes (SPOILERS)

“Why do you think I live out here?” Rowan asked after a while. “I assume because you like nature.” “I do, but it’s more than that.” Rowan turned around. “If I’m out here, I can’t hurt anybody else. I trained hard at the Guild so that I could control this.”

“Drink,” he ordered, working at the bindings. Rowan popped the cork, a little smoke rising from the potion. “Not inspiring,” he muttered, tossing it back before he could think better of it.

“He was grinning from ear to ear. Shaw figured had his tail been out, Caleb would have been wagging it furiously.”

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas | Review

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Pages: 229

Genre: new adult, fantasy

Synopsis

Feyre, Rhys, and their close-knit circle of friends are still busy rebuilding the Night Court and the vastly-changed world beyond. But Winter Solstice is finally near, and with it, a hard-earned reprieve.

Yet even the festive atmosphere can’t keep the shadows of the past from looming. As Feyre navigates her first Winter Solstice as High Lady, she finds that those dearest to her have more wounds than she anticipated–scars that will have far-reaching impact on the future of their Court.

Honest summary? Friends giving each other gifts, celebrating Christmas – no wait Winter Solice – and talking about a war somewhere, but Tamlin being unhappy is the only piece of action as everyone (Feyre) is fucking or going to the store or painting.   

My thoughts

Rating out of five:

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I’ve read a lot of reviews of this book, before actually reading I saw a lot of varied ratings given and afterwards to get the answers to “why are people liking this?”.

Here’s a rapid fire round of things I disliked: males and gentlemales everywhere, smutty sex scenes from a bad fanfic, all for girlpower in theory but not in action? even Amren isn’t seen fighting here. More is coming, just wait.

Let’s get my favourite moments over with, to balance it out a bit: Feyre interacting with Ressina and other artist or people who also have been affected by the war, Cassian & Feyre decorating for Solstice (basically Christmas), they all getting drunk, Amren moments in general.

I don’t care for the sex scenes. When I read them in earlier books I wondered why I hated them so much, and they’re just bad and cringy. Also I hate it if I have to pause the action of a book to read detailed cringy description of how sex works and the word “thrust” over and over. In this book there were no action that needed to be paused, like the last one, but I felt like I needed to read this book to not miss out on the bigger storyline. There’s a lot of rebuilding of Velaris in this book along with healing for all the people there, including all the characters we know and love. I didn’t want to miss that.

I’ve never read so many pages about friends giving each other gifts. It was cute, the first two, but IT NEVER ENDS. I feel like this about many of the fluffier moments of the book. That along with the sex is why people are comparing it to fanfiction I think, the book is written with the focus to include the characters in different settings and scenes to get these heartwarming moments. I definitely appreciated reading them, but they were very transparent and felt artificial or false, which is a weird thought to have about something that’s in a book, but I couldn’t help but notice it. Perhaps it’s made worse by how the rest of the series doesn’t really match the tone of this novella.

In case someone hasn’t realized it (I didn’t when I first heard about this book): IT’S A NOVELLA. But it doesn’t feel detached from the rest of the series? It’s a bridge between what happened in book three and four, and that’s why it’s difficult to advice if people need to read this. At the high price I first saw of this book (it’s become some lower since I think), I wondered if the publisher agreed to sell anything Maas was willing to write, and after reading this I still feel the same way. Maybe it’s something a part of the fans wanted, but my opinion is that that’s a slippery slope down to making a worse book and product in general. This novella reads like fanfic. Unfortunately it made me more nervous and less excited for the next full book in the series, and the series overall as I have loved it until now. 

Quote of the Week #5

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It’s time for the quote of the week (as it hasn’t been happening the last few weeks)! If I remember correctly, these got darker and darker as my physical health declined, so this week were starting up light again.

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Okay, this is true. But I’m a student and when I have to study for a test, especially in a subject I don’t like such as geography (ugh), I will carry the textbook with me. Closed, as if I could gain the information by osmosis. It will end up in my bed next to my pillow, eat dinner with me, watch tv with me. I am carrying the damn book just because I am anxious. This has blown up in my face once or twice as I feel like I’ve read more than I really have, as I had the book on me this whole time, but didn’t actually study. More often than not though it will remind me to revise and remember information.

A couple days ago I was also at the library I grew up with, the first time in a year. And I had such a good time, reading books about anxiety as well as herbs. I ended up struggling to carry these six thick books through the whole city, with a ripped plastic bag draped over them to seem a bit more casual. Met my chilhood friend on the way and she was like “have you been shopping?”, I was like “the library” and she seemed very pleased of this proof that I had not changed much. I was too.

 

The Future by Neil Hilborn | Review

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Genre: poetry

Pages: 100

Rating out of five stars:

fire

I’ve long wanted to read Neil Hilborn’s first collection of poems “Our Numbered Days” after first watching his slam poems or spoken word pieces a few years ago. I was taken with how honest and passionate he seemed like, often talking about mental illness, being diagnosed with OCD and bipolar disorder. This second collection of poems contains much of the same subjects, as Neil draws from his everyday life.

From the first poem “How do you sleep with an IV in?” I was completely here for it. I started reading this book while I was in the hospital with a lot of pain, perhaps not on accident as I knew Neil would talk about his own struggles and I needed something to connect with. I’ve read this book again afterwards, to be sure I liked it and was surprised by how much I marked and highlighted passages. Here’s the first sentences of “How do you sleep with an IV in?”:

It’s just for dehydration, the nurse

says. She hangs up this alien bladder

full of fluid so clear that it couldn’t

possibly be from anywhere but space.

The poems are often looking forward, as the title “The Future” might give away. But it looks forward by talking about the past. It wonders what would happen if this one thing was different. It’s about people, about journeys, about love (of course), about being on the road. Overall I find myself really liking Neil’s voice, how he thinks and his phrasing and that’s overall what holds on to me more than the subject of the poems.

Now I tried to pick out a part of a poem, to give examples of how good they are. But my favourites are a couple pages long and you need to read the whole thing to fully get it, so just trust me and get the book, thanks. 

Favourite poems (for now): “How do you sleep with an IV in?”, “LAKE”, “I’m back, not for good”, “Blood in my sock”, “As much wind as possible”, “psalm 12, in which the author alienate his audience”, “The Future” – this one deserves an extra note as I was highlighting whole pages, Neil talks about his brain and suicide, about why he haven’t killed himself yet. He describes killing himself as a “glowing exit sign at a show that’s never been quite bad enough to make me want to leave”. There’s lots of reasons and ways people are suicidal, so many I don’t yet know and of course poems like this doesn’t give you that complete understanding, but they’re an important step in seeing other’s experiences. It feels good to see thoughts like these expressed so well on a page.

Did I forgot to mention I love the poem titles? For those who feel like poems are difficult or lack self-irony, Neil Hilborn’s poems are the oposite of that. I would completely recommend this collection and I wish him all the best. I’m going to read “Our Numbered Days” soon.

 

Thanks for receiving this copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Long Summer Days & Chronic Illness Trying to Ruin Them

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I’ve just spent almost two weeks in a cabin on an island, without internet for the most part. Here’s what I learned: I miss the internet only when it’s cloudy and I am bored and need to occupy myself. Which was like two days, because it was thirthy degrees celcius outside and I am not used to this heat. There was only blue sky and blue calm water, nothing I had to remember or worry about. Lots of bathing, catching and then releasing butterflies with my cousin, seeing family I hadn’t in a long time and nostalgia of being reunited with my older brothers. They also lured me up on some mountain in just slippers before they also managed to get lost, but that gave me nostalgia too so I can’t really complain much.

A couple days ago I also got my head back enough for the first time in over a month to start reading Oatbringer by Brandon Sanderson. When I read a hundred pages in one sitting the first time, at 2 am, I was ecstatic.  I’m sure it sounds obvious, but I didn’t realize just how much morphine pain killers fucks with my head until I stopped them. I almost forgot baking lemon cake, fishing, driving boats at high speed and relaxing. It was a dream.

Here’s the recipe to the best glutenfree lemon cake I have ever made, before this post takes a darker turn. 

I hope this all sounds as lovely as it was, but then there’s the part where I just spent almost two weeks in a cabin on an island because one night three days into my stay I could not breathe. *brief pause as I notice a spider on my leg and kill it with my hands, I want credit for that* Anyway, I woke up and noticed something was wrong, an hour later I could not breathe, the tightness in my chest didn’t stop. I was just hospitalized for a lung infection and gallbladder surgery, not to forget I had misplaced my glasses, so I took a weird choice – woke up no one and wandered out of the cabin to get some fresh air. With the phone camera in front of me I then saw the shrubs move and a badger walk out, a distance away from me. I’ve met these badgers before, they are very cute and will also bite your leg until it hears a crack, so I ran for my life. Which looks more like walking slowly, hunched over, when you already can’t breathe.

So the day after I spent eight hours in emergency rooms and then three awful days in the third hospital of the month. The first hospital visit had been a ten days stay on the other side of the country, where I live, the second one for my minor gallbladder surgery I had just days before. This third hospital I had been to before, but I was nowhere near prepared for how awful it would be. I was in less pain than before. The people I shared room with however were very sick, and looking back there’s no way they got enough pain treatment.

One old lady barely stopped crying the twentyfour hours I was with her, both in pain and because she didn’t know where she was. She kept asking me to help her, confusing me with a nurse because of my young age and I couldn’t get up from my bed. That was the first time I lost it completely and broke down crying. Another lady was just bones, she got worse until the final morning she was swatting the nurses hands away, begging and yelling for them to let her just die, why couldn’t they let her just die. The nurses were nice to me, but acted like this was okay. Maybe it was normal to them, but in no way was that okay. Having been stuck unmoving in another hospital bed weeks earlier, waking up crying from pain that lasted hours, even with morphine, something in me could relate too much. I felt so bad for them, and there was nothing I could do. And also at this point, my situation wasn’t getting better either. So I broke down for a second time. I did not stop crying for hours until I had gotten out of that hospital, feeling mentally much worse than when I arrived. They hopefully got rid of my infection though. Don’t think it was worth it.

I also had to go back for a colonoscopy  (google it), where you have to take laxatives which was a minor nightmare as they didn’t work properly. No inflammation in my intestines this time, which means my ulcerative colitis isn’t flaring on top of everything else so that’s some good luck.

I don’t know if one should focus on the good or the bad. On the fact that I still barely can’t walk some evenings because the hospitals never had time or resources to figure out why my joints are swelling, or that I cannot laugh without wheezing in pain. At least I notice very much how often I have laughed these days. But last week I could finally be in the ocean without my body hurting, two days later I could submerge myself in water completely without lungs burning, a day later I could swim! It sucks to be in pain, to so much need a break from illness and having to fight to only halfway get there. This last year, I could probably sit down and count the times I’ve cried. Until now, because I don’t seem to be done no matter how many lovely days I fight to put between me and those hospital stays.

I’ll be back with book reviews soon, I’m so excited to be reading again.

Also I can’t leave my books at my dad’s house, they won’t survive long without rain damage –

Hospitalization & Collecting Books and Never Getting a Chance To Read Them | Bookhaul #1

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Hi again! There is this thing I really struggle to write about, for many reasons. And then I always wonder, do anyone care to read it anyway? But I am also on painkillers and bored so here we go-

I am chronically ill, and sometimes it really defines what I am able to do. For instance I dropped one grade in all my classes because I got worse towards the end of the year, The moment exam season finished I got really sick, and turns out I had a lung infection. And then we realized my gallbladder bile duct was enlarged and today I had surgery to fix it. I’m terrified of hospitals yet I have been in one for two weeks, before I got to fly to the biggest hospital in the country for the surgery thing today.

Pain is extremely difficult to describe, and I am not in a condition to make a good attempt at it right now. But I want to share that I’ve had three different mothers tell me gall stones are way worse than giving birth – “I have three kids and I would rather give birth to them again, all in a row”. So while it’s not certain I have gallstones, it’s been a lot of pain. Which is why I haven’t been able to read.

Which bring me back to the books- This is going to be a weird post. I had been looking forward to reading these books for months, I just had to get through exams and end of schoolyear. Now I am looking forward to reading them on a beach somewhere if I ever get out of this hospital.

Physical books

The Lake House by Kate Morton 

The Complete Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (I have to admit I bought it only because of the cover, I mean look at it)

Ebooks

Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson includes a lot of short stories and novellas from the Cosmere universe like Edgedancer, which I read before starting Oatbringer.

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky was bought because it was cheap.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu was also cheap, oops.

Books from NetGalley

The Future by Neil Hilborn, a poet I’ve followed for a while, but never read his collections.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett, a well-received fantasy, with “industrialized magic” and thieves.

The Plastic Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg, magic and a lovely cover.

The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara, with pirates!

Summer TBR | Top Ten Tuesday

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl to bring bookish friends together. A new topic is posted each week.

Why not just post my summer TBR? I am horrible at following tbr’s and do not feel any need to, but most of these books are chosen because I have access to them in the library of the city I am visiting and so this one is more likely than the rest.

 

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

This is a gigantic book, like when I saw the hardcover I laughed out loud in a bookstore. It’s gigantic even for being over a thousand pages. Then I saw the paperback and sighed, it was no smaller and felt like a brick as I carried it around me. I’m so excited to finally start it now after exam season!

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

It’s science fiction, which I’m trying to read more of this summer. The main character Jason are knocked out and wakes up with a life and family he’s never known. Many of my goodreads friends (and then Hank Green!) has recommended it.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

By an author I’ve read and liked, this book hopefully is a intelligent and cute fairytale fantasy for middle schoolers. Am I anywhere close, to those who has read it?

 

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

Young adult with queer characters and university life and dreams from an author in her twenties. I’m very excited (it also has an average of 4.3 on goodreads).

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas

Do I really want to read this after reading mixed reactions reviews? Not really. Let me go on a rant about what first put me off this book: it’s a novella of 229 pages exactly. The price in the store was that of two and a half normal-sized books! The reviews came out and that price dropped fast, but if I can get it without paying for it I will read it, just to have an opinion. This series is the only one by Sarah I haven’t given up on yet, so a lot is on the line I feel like.  

 

Wolf Island (The Demonata #8) by Darren Shan

I started reading this series as a kid, and as I am going back to my childhood library I hope to finish it! It’s really fantastic and filled with demons.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

I love reading Murakami’s books in the summer, the magical realism always fits and gives a good and mysterious mood. I don’t really want to know much about the books before starting them, just let them surprise me.

 

 

Einstein by Walter Isaacson

I started reading this a year ago and had to put it down one fourth in to start reading my actual physics syllabus. Now it’s summer and hopefully more time for it again!

Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman

Speaking of physics, I have it next year as well. I feel like we rush through a lot and the teacher we’ve had until now is good, but he comes from an engineering background and it’s been very focused on appliance instead of theories themselves, if that makes sense. Just trying to get better myself, I guess.

A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

I also have more history classes next year. I am going to suffer through it, maybe this book will give me some interest.

 

 

Rare or New Books? | Book Blogger Hop

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The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. Every week there’s a new book-themed question to be answered!

 

June 15th – 21st – You have just won a $100.00 Visa gift card. Will you spend the entire amount on a rare collector’s edition you have always wanted, or buy several newly-published books? 

 

I’m young and would spend it on newly-published books that I wanted to read. I want so badly to one day have a library with all the books close to my heart, but before that I am hopefully moving around, especially to university, and it would be hard bringing everything with me. While I have things I love, I am very aware that I don’t want to collect too many things. Who knows, in the next years I suddenly decide to just travel.

That gift card would be a dream though, it’s free books that I can pick out myself!

Books That Makes Me Want to Travel | Top Ten Tuesday

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl to bring bookish friends together. A new topic is posted each week.

I am very excited too read others lists this week, because I want to get more recs of “travel” books. I looked through books I’ve read and found few, except for with fantasy worlds, that made me want to travel. So here’s a few unusual ones –

 

Upstream by Mary Oliver

All of Mary Oliver’s poems about nature makes me want to run out and find it (which wouldn’t be too difficult since I live in a little valley village). It also makes me want to never return though.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I don’t enjoy travel photography as much as actually travelling  there and seeing it myself, which I think can be compared to reading about travels. But I really enjoy books like this, where the main characters has to leave abruptly, with little things, because while it’s often not in the best circumstances, it seems like a weirdly freeing feeling.  

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

All of Haruki Murakami’s books makes me want to travel to the places, often in Japan. Here he also writes from a time living in Hawaii and you get to read descriptions from all his good running routes, along with a marathon in Europe somewhere (Greece, was it?).

 

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Ok, I tried to leave out fantasy books, but this had a journey that I so wanted to go on when I read it the first time. I might not have been so worried about the danger either if I had Katsa’s skill with fighting.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente 

I mostly added this to the list as a joke, but I would go to space had there been proven other sentient species on other planets. Perhaps not by force, like in this book, but it did make me excited about the future and space travel.