So, I've been reading....
I've been reading. Here are my thoughts on some of the books:
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson: I liked it a lot. It's YA, but for once, there's no annoying love triangle. It's about a teenage girl who goes to a boarding school in London as an exchange student. While she's there, some murders that have s lot of similarities to Jack the Ripper start happening. It has supernatural elements, but nothing too heavy. It's well-written.
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: It's not bad. It has some similarities to Twilight, though. It's basically if Twilight had been written by someone who could actually write and does research. There's a lot of stuff going on and the writing is dense. The plot doesn't just show up 2/3 in like in Twilight. It sucks that it's Book 1 of a trilogy. But yes, there's also the Vampire watching her sleep thing and him being patronizing. And her tolerating that and thinking that she was nothing special, but of course, she's a very special snowflake, as the book goes on. The whole "Her falling in love with him" wasn't earned, either. All of sudden, she's head over heels for him and never doubts that, even though it basically starts a war and puts herself and all the people she loves at risk. But those were minor quibbles in a reasonably entertaining book where the characters were actual characters, not just empty shells for the reader to project themselves into.
The secret life of dresses by Erin McKean: It's chicklit, but bittersweet, because there's a character death. And it's more of coming of age story than a love story. I liked it. All the dresses described in it sound lovely and make me want to have a closet like the main character.
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson: I liked it a lot. It's YA, but for once, there's no annoying love triangle. It's about a teenage girl who goes to a boarding school in London as an exchange student. While she's there, some murders that have s lot of similarities to Jack the Ripper start happening. It has supernatural elements, but nothing too heavy. It's well-written.
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness: It's not bad. It has some similarities to Twilight, though. It's basically if Twilight had been written by someone who could actually write and does research. There's a lot of stuff going on and the writing is dense. The plot doesn't just show up 2/3 in like in Twilight. It sucks that it's Book 1 of a trilogy. But yes, there's also the Vampire watching her sleep thing and him being patronizing. And her tolerating that and thinking that she was nothing special, but of course, she's a very special snowflake, as the book goes on. The whole "Her falling in love with him" wasn't earned, either. All of sudden, she's head over heels for him and never doubts that, even though it basically starts a war and puts herself and all the people she loves at risk. But those were minor quibbles in a reasonably entertaining book where the characters were actual characters, not just empty shells for the reader to project themselves into.
The secret life of dresses by Erin McKean: It's chicklit, but bittersweet, because there's a character death. And it's more of coming of age story than a love story. I liked it. All the dresses described in it sound lovely and make me want to have a closet like the main character.