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Hayley's Reading in 2021


Hayley

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2 hours ago, Hayley said:

:giggle2: I have no idea how old you are but I doubt that you are really old. I would quite like my age to be measured by reading time though, it sounds so much nicer.

 

I definitely think it should be in there, to make the voice identifiably Abigail, like you say. I think it is generally really accurate too. I have a teenage niece and a nephew who's the same age Abigail is meant to be and they definitely do use most of the same slang. There's just very occasional moments (and I actually think there's a lot less in this one than the other short story from Abigail) when it distracts me slightly and I think '... are you sure that's how that word would be used?' or 'does this sound more like what an adult thinks a teen should sound like, than what an actual teen sounds like?'. There was one in particular that really stood out for me as weird context for a word but I can't remember what it was now. 

It's not a huge problem though, it didn't stop me from enjoying the book. It's just a little niggling thing that stops me getting totally engrossed in the story like I can with Peter Grant as narrator (although I also totally agree that Tobias sounded so much like Peter you could probably have interchanged them). 

  

 

Being really old, I have no idea what a teenager sounds like these days, but I thought Ben did a convincing job (well, convincing enough for me, anyway).

 

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21 hours ago, Raven said:

 

Being really old, I have no idea what a teenager sounds like these days, but I thought Ben did a convincing job (well, convincing enough for me, anyway).

Would you like to borrow one? They talk a LOT, you'd pick it up in no time :giggle2:. I do seriously think he did a good job of it though. Most of the time it was perfect. Just occasionally didn't feel quite natural to me.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 20/04/2021 at 1:58 PM, Raven said:

It's a pass, then.

Understandable!

 

Last Wednesday I had a call to say could someone collect my niece because she'd been kicked out of school. We don't really have an appropriate emote for how I feel about that... maybe a combination of :o:wacko::wibbly: ? Not fun. 

 

What was fun, when I eventually got round to it, was finishing the second Septimus Heap book...

 

Flyte by Angie Sage

4/5 - I really enjoyed it 

 

I could basically repeat my last review because I loved this book for the same reasons but this did have the bonus of exploring more of the world. You really do get a sense of the geography of this fictional place and I think there's a lot to be said for that. There is a map at the beginning but I don't feel the need to refer to it to remember the layout (although maybe I would if I wasn't reading the books back-to-back). These are just good, well-written, traditional-style fantasy books. 

 

Now I have the dilemma of wanting to read tonight but having no idea what I want to read. I don't usually have an entire series at one time, so it feels a bit weird to just keep reading the Septimus Heap books! They are good though...

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On 17/04/2021 at 5:33 PM, Hayley said:

 

 

What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

4.5/5 - Again, really, really enjoyed it!

Gosh, I did read you review weeks ago, and I thought mentioning the spoiler alert, though obviously I didn’t. I loved WADTS, and the only irritation for me were the footnotes. They weren’t that helpful, for me. I have absolutely no idea how young people live, let alone how they chatter! But I hope the Aaronovitch writes more novels about Abigail as the main character. 🙂

 

I had missed the connects in the spoiler alert, though I should have! *facepalm*

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43 minutes ago, Marie H said:

the only irritation for me were the footnotes. They weren’t that helpful, for me.

I hadn't really thought about them but I can't remember there being much of point to them either. Maybe just to let us know who's meant to be reading Abigail's account?

 

51 minutes ago, Marie H said:

But I hope the Aaronovitch writes more novels about Abigail as the main character. 🙂

Me too! I love Abigail's connection with the foxes and the fact that she can get into situations the older characters wouldn't.

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1 hour ago, Marie H said:

 

I loved WADTS, and the only irritation for me were the footnotes. They weren’t that helpful, for me.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Hayley said:

 

I hadn't really thought about them but I can't remember there being much of point to them either. Maybe just to let us know who's meant to be reading Abigail's account?

 

 

I believe that the novels and the novellas are now being presented as accounts of events in the past as written up by their authors at the time (not sure when this started, might have been Foxglove Summer, but it has been going on for a few books now). 

 

As far as I can make out, they appear to be a plot device to explain any slang terms used for US readers and are presented in the books as footnotes from Postmartin to Agent Reynolds.

 

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20 hours ago, Raven said:

As far as I can make out, they appear to be a plot device to explain any slang terms used for US readers and are presented in the books as footnotes from Postmartin to Agent Reynolds.

 

Yeah, some of the footnotes in the novellas pre-Abigail we’re definitely for the US market.
 

Though I think that RoL, as a whole, would be very difficult for US readers to follow all the very Britishness of the books. :dunno:

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2 hours ago, Marie H said:

 

Though I think that RoL, as a whole, would be very difficult for US readers to follow all the very Britishness of the books. :dunno:

 

 

Not to be jingoistic, but I suspect there are a lot of American readers who would like that!

 

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On 05/05/2021 at 7:49 PM, Raven said:

I believe that the novels and the novellas are now being presented as accounts of events in the past as written up by their authors at the time (not sure when this started, might have been Foxglove Summer, but it has been going on for a few books now). 

 

As far as I can make out, they appear to be a plot device to explain any slang terms used for US readers and are presented in the books as footnotes from Postmartin to Agent Reynolds.

Oh, they were from Postmartin! That makes sense, I remember wondering who the footnotes were being written by but I sort of forgot about it by the time I wrote my review. 

 

I like the idea that these accounts suggest something happening in the future of the main series where different organisations are sharing information about magic. Maybe it's a hint for something to come as well as a convenient way to explain slang terms? That could be overthinking it though. It's been a long day :lol:.

 

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  • 3 months later...

It has been far too long since I posted in this thread and unfortunately I'm going to re-start it with some sad news. Some of you may have noticed that I posted about my boyfriends cat being unwell (and I call her his because he had her since he was about 13, a couple of years before we met) on the read-a-thon thread at the weekend. Well, I took her to the vet on Monday, because she wasn't eating properly, and they found a tumour. Sadly, they couldn't do anything for her. She was very loved and I am very sad. So, that's why I've been quiet for a couple of days. 

 

 

 

I do have a new book to review; The Essex Serpent, which I finished during the August read-a-thon:

 

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

4.5/5

It was very good

 

This is a very well written book. The kind the where you forget that it's a nice sunny day, because you've been exploring the chilly Essex marshes, so you feel slightly surprised when you close the book. When I was reading it I felt like not much was happening, but it didn't matter because I was enjoying reading it anyway. In hindsight, there's actually quite a lot that happens, often fairly dramatic things, but I think they become part of the background of the book, rather than the focus, because the focus is on emotion. Emotion is dealt with brilliantly well in this book. It really lays out the huge range of quirks and complexities that humans experience in their emotional responses to other people and themselves. As part of that it also looks at the characters of the novel as people with complex backgrounds and circumstances which impact their emotions. There are a couple, for example, who have experienced grief and respond to it in different ways; there is a character who is obviously neurodivergent, and one who has an illness which changes her mentally. The main character we follow, Cora, has a very traumatic background, but I liked that it didn't become a main feature of her personality. Although it influenced the way she experiences the world, those new experiences were clearly the important part.    

I was worried, when I bought it, that this book would essentially be a romance but it absolutely is not. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because I couldn't honestly say I loved it quite as much as other books I've given 5 stars to here.

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On 11/08/2021 at 3:23 PM, lunababymoonchild said:

I'm so sorry to hear about you and your boyfriend's cat. It is an actual bereavement so I hope that you can pull together to get through it. My heartfelt condolences to you both.

Thank you so much. Honestly, I still feel a bit in shock about the whole experience. The COVID restrictions made it seem particularly brutal :(.

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Whilst I am not by any means a 'cat person', I feel your loss. Any beloved pet leaves a void in your life. We experienced the loss of three wonderful dogs over the years, and finally decided not to get another,as the pain was just too great when they passed on.

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On 18/08/2021 at 11:02 AM, itsmeagain said:

Hi Hayley. 

You have my heartfelt sympathy. I absolutely love  cats and I know how it feels. 💖

Thank you. 

 

I know that's very brief, and the same goes for my last post, but I do really mean that thank you, to all of you.

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On 24/08/2021 at 2:31 PM, Raven said:

Missed this completely, but I'm sorry to hear about your/your boyfriend's cat as well.

 

Thank you.

 

This has been a very sad thread recently but I do have a couple of nice book-related things to post soon, including a review and some new books. I have been promised that my shelves are arriving soon too, so I'll share some updates on the book-moving excitement/ chaos as that happens!

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