Since a new page doesn’t get shared to the people who follow me, let’s create a blogpost: Look I made a Thing!
And the Thing is superhandy and useful. I felt like fooling around with Excel 2016 a bit, so I made: The Rory List, Now With Checkboxes!
More information can be found here: https://readingthething.wordpress.com/for-your-convenience-the-rory-list-in-excel-now-with-checkboxes/
Please let me know what you think, and share it among those interested ^^
People who follow me on twitter, might know I have a slight reader-crush on Chris Ward (proof). I’m slowly reading through his bibliography (and he writes a lot!), and sometimes get e-ARC’s because I am on his mailinglist. This was also the case for Stolen, for which I am truly grateful, because this was a highly entertaining and suspenseful read.
This book is being put in the genre of “romantic suspense”. I hate romance books. I really enjoyed this one however, so even if you have the same averse feeling towards romance books, you might want to give this one a chance. What it lacks that many romance books do have, is the love-triangle. Yes, there are of course problems that the two people in this book have to overcome, but they are human problems that make sense to them as a person and their situation, not “romantic problems just to get a plot going”. The plot of Stolen is driven by the search into Chiaki’s (one of the main characters) past, and not by the two lovebirds getting together (although that is the catalyst for why the search is being undertaken). It has a bit of the “true love on first sight”-trope going on, but since those emotions are actually questioned by the characters, I can forgive them this.
But to give away all of the plot would give too many spoilers, so I’ll mention the other things I loved. As the above tweet tells you, I loved the characters: can I be their friend? They are full people. They have good and bad traits, they have a past and a future. You feel for them, right from the beginning. The book takes places in Japan, and Ben (the other main character) is from the UK. I have an ungoing fascination for Japan (I am learning Japanese, again, as I have tried on and off for the past 10 years, but I am finally getting somewhere :D), so the casual immersion into Japanese culture was something I really enjoyed. And it had the outsiders view from Ben, which is very relatable to mine, since I live in Europe. It’s a page-turner. There are no real lulls in this book, which keeps you reading and reading. I think it’s more luck than anything else that I did not miss any public transport stops while reading ;)
This post first appeared on ReadingTheThing.
So I participated boutofbooks 17, and it felt like a really productive one. I did not participate in the twitterchats *sad trombone* and did not do any challenges, because that did just not fot my (BUSY!) week.
My totals (since I love numbers!)
I listened to 105 minutes of audiobook, read 966 pages, finished 5 books and started 5 books (but one was almost done when starting this week, and one I started and did not finish yet).
This readathon kickstarted my reading again. I am a lean mean reading machine, peeps! Beware or I’ll hit you with hardbacks and punch you with pages!
(Can you tell I had a busy day at work and need ro release some stress xD)
For your calenders: next BoutOfBooks will be the first week of 2017!
I had heard about THE CIRCLE. I mean, I work in IT, I know people who read books, and some of those people tend to go for the bestseller-kind-of-book, and this book got a lot of traction. So I knew it was about privacy and something google-like, and that people found the ideas scary and fascinating. Then my book club proposed us reading it, and I fully supported this idea. We tend to read non-fiction, so doing fiction is a nice change of pace for a change, and it’s a topic I have opinions on, so all seemed swell.
And oh boy, did I have Opinions! (And those Opinions will contain spoilers, so don’t read on if you mind those). For me it was a quick and fast-paced read, some fastfood inbetween more nourishing reading. I ended up being so annoyed that I had to tweet about it (sorry tweeps!).
I really disliked the main character however, but how she was as a person and how she must have been “set up” by Eggers. I suppose he wanted a protagonist through which he could explain all of the Circle, the fictional google-esk company that gives the book it’s title and is overtaking the whole internet with the unification of all it’s services from facebook to banking to collecting all of the data. However, that did create a protagonist who is so much like a blank slate, that she has no personality of her own. She seems constantly only being imprinted by the people – men – she meets (even her body is described by how it got more attractive to men when she gained some curves after puberty; male gaze much?).
She completely internalizes the philosophy of the Circle, becomes a spokesperson because she starts to wear a webcam-camera 24/7 (well… except bathroom visits and sleeping).The people that disagree with this, with her being so-called Transparent and the Circle’s way in general, are being portrayed as ungrateful and horrible. Mostly so her ex-boyfriend Mercer; he is being called fat and ugly multiple times throughout the book. Because being fat is the worst thing a person can be of course.
There is also casual poly-shaming. There is a comparison of people who rule companies that go for less privacy to nazi’s. And yes, of course those are just the opinions of the characters in the book, and fictional characters can say what they want, but it makes the whole book unlikable for me, since it’s seems unnecesary. If you think companies that want global surveillance for everyone are horrible, than say they are horrible. If you need an example of news that might come out that would horrify people, than don’t take the situation that one’s parents probably have or had open relationship; there is much more horrible stuff out there that does not involve people who all gave consent (yeah, I know it’s just a starter for reveiling something *really* bad, but an open relationship being portrayed as something you should be shamed for, rubs me the wrong way).
In our real, actual world we have Google and Facebook. They know much about everyone, and we often don’t know or don’t want to know how much and how they got this knowledge.Everyone is different with how the care about this. Some people (try) not to use these sites and all the (virtual) products they own. Some embrace part. Some use all and share “everything”. Not to mention that even though the internet is widespread, it is not accesible to everyone (and there is censure going on, in China, Turkey, other countries). The fact this book made all the people in the world seem as it was one homogonous group, was too farfetched for me. It also made it very western-centric, which isn’t a problem it itself, but then please don’t make it sound like it’s the whole world you’re influencing.
The book also seemed to have the underlying idea that always being connected to others over the internet, makes people needy and sensitive to possible social rejection. Again there is a generalization that this’ll work for all people, while it is way more diverse. This seems much more a personality and anxiety thing than a general rule. People are different in how much they want to give up in privacy for products. Although I must admit that general awareness of sharing things online, and how it can backfire, should get better (she said, while writing a blogpost for all the world to see).
The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 9th and runs through Sunday, May 15th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 16 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team
I’m joining this time again, full-on! I actually have the day off tomorrow, so I can spend, most of my day reading! My workdays will be a bit shorter than usual (I work in IT at a school nowadays, and the students still have spring-holiday next week, so there is less need of my services), which also equals more reading time. And next weekend is also delightfully empty and this means EVEN MORE READING OPPURTUNITY! I might go to the sauna on sunday though. Which just means reading while naked.
I went goalless the last few times, which I enjoyed. The only thing I am changing this year is that I am doing some sort of TBR, which consists of the following physical books:
I also have some ebooks I want to finish or dive into, and will continue an audiobook on my commute (at the parts where I can’t read).
A list of the aforementioned books (because lists are lovely):
And now I’m off to bed (after preparing a batch of cold brew to drink tomorrow <3), and really looking forward to tomorrow!
2015 in Manchester is not a place and time you want to be, if you read Matt Hill’s book GRAFT. The story about Sol and Y is sometimes hard to get into, and sometimes really accesible. Although that might also be a personal thing, which depended on my own state of mind; I read the book in a few readings, and wasn’t always the most awake. Which might have lead to me DREAMING about someone with three arms! But I digress.
What I liked, but what others might not enjoy as much, is that many things stay vague. How has the world collapsed into something post-apocalyptic in just 10 years? How does the changing of humans into something else work? Where do they come from? How is the rest of the UK faring? The rest of Europe? The world? I enjoy the slowly finding out what there is to find out, and still having questions at the end, because that is how life works; you don’t get anything in a clearcut package.
I loved how the story was structured. How you got to read about Sol and his work in one chapter, and seem to be in a completely different world in the next, following Y after she wakes up and has no memory of what has come before. Different characters are introduced, and their tales connect. That does work well, except in one case. On the whole, I feel like the role Mel plays seems a bit too fabricated, like she was added on later because some of her functions were needed. However, I did like her as a character/person and would like to know more about her. The same goes for many characters in the book: The Irish, Roy, the Reverend, The Manor Lord.
This book only scratches the surface of this possible future. Will there be more? I’d like it if there was.
Graft by Matt Hill will be published on the 2nd of February by Angry Robot Books.
… and as the picture shows, I am an expert this time, which means I’ll do my usual cheering, but now I will be OFFICIAL and stuff ;) I’ve been participating every time since I discovered this readathon about 2.5 years ago, and it’s one of my favourite things of the year, so I am happy to help the awesome Amanda and Kelly who have been organizing this read-fest for the past 14 (FOURTEEN!) times. This is the 15th. Will you join us?
I decided to not do ARC’s this year, so I am reading complete range free (which is weirdly paralyzing). I’ll have the following goals next week:
And besides this I’ll spend some of my commute on twitter, and reading and commenting on other blogs. So, if you want me to drop by this week, leave a link in the comments :)
