(no subject)
Reading the book "The Gardens of Kyoto", book i got from Bryanna as my birthday gift <333
I've heard Bryanna mention this book before so i was very pleasantly surprised by the gift. I've been wanting to read more on the metro rides. Granted I still get headaches but I was growing bored of just sleeping.
Anyways the story is mostly about coping with a loss of your loved one I think. I'm only at page 40 out of about 280 so I can't quite say. The story starts off saying that the main character (a woman) received a letter saying that her cousin and her first love died in world war II. He was only a boy of 17, I'd gather the woman was then a bit younger than him, perhaps 15 or 16.
It's an interesting way to write a story. It's written in first person, third person and second person format. It also makes the reader jump time lines, as the main character talks as if she's still a young teenager and sometimes a much older woman retracing her memories. It's really like reading someone's memory, even more so as the woman is left with Randall's diary, a memory within a memory. Normally these types of writing is confusing but in this book it works. It works very well I think... (so much better than "The song of fire and ice. ie Game of thrones" As much as I'm a fan of Game of Thrones the HBO series, i freaking hated reading all the books.)
Also the book is very... sentimental and enchanting. Normally I find these stories boring and slow. (And it is a bit slow if someone wanted to read action ) but the memories are all very short. I'm captivated within just a page or two. I had to stop and step back a bit to realize I only read few pages but it felt like I've read years and years of someone's timeline.
By page 28 I burst into tears. I can get very emotional when reading about deaths.... and by page 33 it was hard for me to continue sometimes. I wanted to spoil myself. And somehow Randall wasn't dead all along but he was alive at the end of the book. It would help me so much more to know that... never have i wished so much that a book had a happy ending instead of an angsty one. I always prefer angsty stories over happy endings. But man... this book, a few times i skimmed ahead trying to see if Randall comes back alive orz....
It's taking me a long time to read the book because this is exactly the type of writing that I can't write. Eloquent, sentimental, soft, enchanting... my writing style is too harsh and rough around the edges; raw. So I read ahead to immerse myself into the story, then around the middle of a page, i go back and re-read to study how it's written. She doesn't waste letters, words and sentences. She doesn't write sweet nothings. But yet even while each word is important, the entire story reads like I'm somehow wrapped in someone's memory. That was one of the main problems I had about writing in a soft, eloquent manner. Most of that writing, though it's nice to be enveloped in some cloud, i feel that often there are sweet-nothings and just fillers. This author, in my opinion, doesn't make it fillers. But yet is still able to capture that sweetness without the 'nothing' so to speak. Anyways, I'm enjoying the slow leisure reading. I'm normally accustomed to reading more action paced stories so this is very different for me.
I've heard Bryanna mention this book before so i was very pleasantly surprised by the gift. I've been wanting to read more on the metro rides. Granted I still get headaches but I was growing bored of just sleeping.
Anyways the story is mostly about coping with a loss of your loved one I think. I'm only at page 40 out of about 280 so I can't quite say. The story starts off saying that the main character (a woman) received a letter saying that her cousin and her first love died in world war II. He was only a boy of 17, I'd gather the woman was then a bit younger than him, perhaps 15 or 16.
It's an interesting way to write a story. It's written in first person, third person and second person format. It also makes the reader jump time lines, as the main character talks as if she's still a young teenager and sometimes a much older woman retracing her memories. It's really like reading someone's memory, even more so as the woman is left with Randall's diary, a memory within a memory. Normally these types of writing is confusing but in this book it works. It works very well I think... (so much better than "The song of fire and ice. ie Game of thrones" As much as I'm a fan of Game of Thrones the HBO series, i freaking hated reading all the books.)
Also the book is very... sentimental and enchanting. Normally I find these stories boring and slow. (And it is a bit slow if someone wanted to read action ) but the memories are all very short. I'm captivated within just a page or two. I had to stop and step back a bit to realize I only read few pages but it felt like I've read years and years of someone's timeline.
By page 28 I burst into tears. I can get very emotional when reading about deaths.... and by page 33 it was hard for me to continue sometimes. I wanted to spoil myself. And somehow Randall wasn't dead all along but he was alive at the end of the book. It would help me so much more to know that... never have i wished so much that a book had a happy ending instead of an angsty one. I always prefer angsty stories over happy endings. But man... this book, a few times i skimmed ahead trying to see if Randall comes back alive orz....
It's taking me a long time to read the book because this is exactly the type of writing that I can't write. Eloquent, sentimental, soft, enchanting... my writing style is too harsh and rough around the edges; raw. So I read ahead to immerse myself into the story, then around the middle of a page, i go back and re-read to study how it's written. She doesn't waste letters, words and sentences. She doesn't write sweet nothings. But yet even while each word is important, the entire story reads like I'm somehow wrapped in someone's memory. That was one of the main problems I had about writing in a soft, eloquent manner. Most of that writing, though it's nice to be enveloped in some cloud, i feel that often there are sweet-nothings and just fillers. This author, in my opinion, doesn't make it fillers. But yet is still able to capture that sweetness without the 'nothing' so to speak. Anyways, I'm enjoying the slow leisure reading. I'm normally accustomed to reading more action paced stories so this is very different for me.