Nollaig

I just had a pint of wine, because that's what I was handed by my housemate.

No Teri Terry?! Ugh that's disappointing.

How do you have time to read all those books?!

Can I ask if you are in any way affiliated with this book or author?

Mostly grey and cloudy here but bits of blue sky. Not as cold as yesterday.

I don't mind. I read-a-thon pretty much whenever I feel like it, not always on the right weekend. I may do it myself this weekend if I decide to stay in Cork for the bank holiday, as it's a three day weekend. And if I can line up what books to read.

I'm a pretty tough marker when it comes to books, in fairness. Even stuff that I thoroughly enjoy won't get full marks unless I really think it's outstanding, so for a book as messy as The Ice Twins it's not surprising I rated it so low. I just got so frustrated with it.

Ehhh it was still a little bit chicklitty. It just had a good ending. I did enjoy it, there were just too many niggles for me. ETA: Finished The Missing by C. L. Taylor - while I didn't like the ending much I loved the rest of it. Very twisty-turny, full of drama, well-written and immersive. Now taking on two rather daunting books simultaneously - Push by Sapphire and The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts.

And they say climate change isn't real!

#38 Me Before You - Jojo Moyles Genre: Romance/Drama/Fiction Synopsis: Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that. What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time. *** Review: Originally I gave this book 4 stars, but I have to be honest, upon reflection it has dropped down to 3 stars. It's extremely easy to read - I flew through it in two evenings - but 'easy to read' is not the same thing as 'good'. While the premise is an interesting one, and the execution is refreshingly not a typical chit-lit girl-meets-boy romance, there are also virtually no characters I ended up caring about (except Will) and way too many unlikely plot points which seemed forced in order to achieve a specific outcome. Louisa kept making me think of Bella Swan - while I can understand her appeal for Will - someone who treats him like a regular person instead of 'a guy in a wheelchair', there isn't much of interest to her beyond that. And I say this as someone with a relatively small town unambitious quiet life myself. Louisa's lack of ambition is hugely relatable for me, but I still didn't particularly care about her as a person. She occasionally seemed like she had zero autonomy at all, especially as related to her long term partner. Her family provided an occasional bit of comic relief, and I have to admit it was a part of the story concerning their financial wellbeing that made me tear up moreso than anything that happened with Louisa and Will. The characters just lacked depth. The only real pull in the story was to see what the final outcome would be. And getting there was a little bit painful. The only example of poor plotting that springs to mind right now (not calling it a spoiler because SURPRISE! they actually went outside once or twice), but which was definitely not the only one in the book, was the failure on both the parts of Louisa AND Nathan, to make a sufficient effort to locate disabled parking on one of their days out, especially considering Louisa then spotted it literally driving out of the venue. Whatever about Louisa, surely Nathan, having worked with Will for two years and other quads prior to him, would have thought to call the venue, or failing that, ask an attendant on the day before assuming there was none and pulling into a field? All that said, it was easy to read, some of the writing was beautiful, and I have to give Moyles credit for not backing down from some tough issues and realistic approaches to them. I felt the ending, which seems to be a point of debate on Goodreads, was actually credible, well-executed and well-handled. I felt Louisa's feelings, and I also completely understood Will's perspective. So I can't say I didn't enjoy it - I did, but there were far too many niggly bits for me to consider it particularly noteworthy. Rating: ★★★✰✰ (I liked it)

Awww thank you Yeah, maybe my problem is that I read short story collections like novels, and often read many short stories in a row. Maybe I should take some time to process each one. I haven't read Stories, but I'm not a huge fan of Gaiman except for American Gods. After three very different sets of short stories, I'm really not sure they're for me, but since you recommended it I may give it a go

Quite cold but fairly clear blue skies

I love how they're all well known figures converted into pulp style characters Yesterday I finished reading Me Before You by JoJo Moyles. I enjoyed it, but there were some really irritating parts which felt poorly written and poorly thought out in order to bring about a situation Moyles wanted to portray. It had a realistic and believable ending though which really redeemed anything that raised my eyebrow prior to it. Not gonna bother with the sequel. Now reading The Missing by C. L. Taylor.

Wow, more than 2 weeks since I've posted any reviews. Fell way behind on my reading and have been frantically trying to catch up. I have two new reviews, and two more that may or may not get written... not sure yet. #36 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories - Angela Carter Genre: Fairytale/Short Stories Synopsis: From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss-in-Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires, werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. Includes: The Bloody Chamber, The Courtship of Mr. Lyon, The Tiger's Bride, Puss-in-Boots, The Erl-King, The Snow Child, The Lady of the House of Love, The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves, Wolf-Alice. *** Review: I think this might be where I have to call it with short stories. They just don't work for me. There's too much disparity in quality across so many different tales that when it comes to rating the book as a whole, the average wins out, does my favourites no justice and ultimately renders the experience not worth it for what bits I liked. The beautiful writing, and one or two stories, were the only real saving graces of this book. As a collection of darker fairytale retellings (something which, when done right, I absolutely love), I thought I might enjoy this. There were parts that I liked, and there was one story that I loved - The Werewolf. I can't say reading the whole book was worth it for that one story alone, as it was also one of the shortest, but I feel like it was one of the deeper stories. Which, probably doesn't say much for the longer stories. Wolf-Alice is the other story that was pretty okay. I think the worst part was the amount of repetition, and recurring use of objects or descriptions. Particular amidst the frequency of wolf-related stories, it began to feel like a collection of slightly differing threads for one story rather than a set of distinct stories. Many of the stories also seemed kind of pointless - for example, the Beauty and the Beast retelling. There was nothing really new added to the story, and the motivations of the Beauty character were so poorly illustrated that they seemed not to exist at all. I'm going to stop ragging on this book now. Absolutely masterful use of language, but wasted on these stories. Rating: ★★✰✰✰ (It was okay) #37 All The Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Magical Realism/Apocalypse Synopsis: Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention into the changing global climate. Patricia is a graduate of the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with other magicians to secretly repair the world's ever-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together--to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages. A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse. *** Review: Ooooh this book. This book. I really liked it, but I didn't quite think it was amazing, and I'm honestly not sure if that's down to me, or to the book. It started off fantastically, with introductions to characters I immediately liked and wanted to know more about. It is also made up of a mishmash of genres, including fantasy (almost fairytale fantasy, not high fantasy), sci-fi, an alternate futuristic version of our world which is facing an apocalypse... like I said, it's a mishmash, and for me it mostly worked and came together very well in the end. The fairly light writing - at times very funny, but at times a little questionable - and easy-to-read nature of the book means it is pretty easy to get through. Ultimately, Patricia represents nature (magic) and Laurence represents science, two things which oppose each other and proponents of which view the impending apocalypse very differently. Starting off with the origin story for each of the main characters, the novel then follows them through their adult years. I found the mid-section of the novel waned, the initial adult years. I think what I found difficult to invest in was the sheer scale of this world the author created, with so little access to it. I felt like the world was too big for this one book, and would have benefitted from being broken across two books. It also jumped back and forth between the present and past of the characters, documenting little pieces of backstory like Patricia's time at Wizard School, which I felt fit very disjointedly and seemed, not irrelevant, but like infodumps slotted in where necessary to make sense of the plot. It's a character driven novel, that's for sure, which is essentially about two people so metaphorically different that it seems impossible they can ever be friends/lovers/whatever. I'm not precisely sure what the metaphor is for, but the sheer scale of what's happening in this book makes me feel like it's gotta be a metaphor for something. Love conquers all? I dunno. I guess my ultimate feelings about this book are very mixed. I want to love it. I feel like there's something in there which, with a little more attention, I could latch onto and comprehend and love. So I'm going to give it four stars for now, and re-read it at another time. Rating: ★★★★✰ (loved it)

A bridge of some kind, I'd imagine. I used one of those to get all the junk off my last laptop onto this current one after the old one's power socket went and I couldn't turn it on anymore. Hard disk was fine, the machine was just damaged in a way that prevented it taking power from a supply. Bridge worked wonders, saved all my stuff. My current one is only 9 because it's second hand - I've had a year and a half. Its former owner was an I.T. guy here in UCC as a work laptop, so I'd say he took good care of it. But yeah, definitely time to do a backup. I have a perfectly good huge external hard drive, so I have zero excuses if I lose anything!

Oh oh I forgot to say these arrived for me today! I love them!

I have two copies, I'm happy to send you my ugly reading copy if you want to read it sooner!

Aha I dunno if I'll write a full review, it's only short novella and there isn't (I don't think) a huge amount to say. It was quite bizzare and unlikely, but also a fun adventure. I never really did figure out the precise details of the politics, either, but I got the gist.

I loved Over Sea, Under Stone, when I read it, but when I got to the second book in the series and it started off (I think, if I recall correctly) with a whole new character, I just couldn't get into it. Should probably give it another go at some stage. Again, so glad you loved Wuthering Heights so much! Really is a phenomenal book.

Eugh, technology is a pain isn't it?! Can't believe your new one didn't work, that's really annoying! I'm terrible for not backing stuff up too - I should know better, given the amount of times I've lost, or almost lost, everything I have to total system failure. And currently I'm working off a 9 year old second hand brick, so the chances of it dying relatively soon are pretty high!

Bright with patches of blue sky but a lot of cloud too, some a bit rainy looking. Cold too. Which I love

I literally only realised 24 episodes into the first season that each episode has the name of a class. I'm such a moron!

I will also be looking forward to your thoughts - the more good reviews it gets the faster I'll get to it. Over 700 pages is daunting though

Wheyyy! It's very good. Not as good as Fly By Night, but very good. I must read more of her books, there are loads and I've only read two so far! Finished The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories this morning, and today tore through The 39 Steps, so I'm back from being one book behind schedule to 1 ahead of schedule. Starting on A Single Man now, as it's also fairly short, and planning to read the last couple of short stories in 'It Came From The North' with the intention of getting back up to 2-3 books ahead of schedule before starting back on longer books again. Whew!