Nollaig

I did enjoy it, and it's made me want to read more of his stuff!! If I pick up a book based on someone else's review that's entirely my own choice !

Glad you enjoyed The Godfather, I loved that book. Watched the film after reading it and just couldn't take himself seriously as Don Corleone. Not at all what I imagined from reading the book.

The Thing About Jellyfish - Ali Benjamin Synopsis: After her best friend dies in a drowning accident, Suzy is convinced that the true cause of the tragedy must have been a rare jellyfish sting-things don't just happen for no reason. Retreating into a silent world of imagination, she crafts a plan to prove her theory--even if it means traveling the globe, alone. Suzy's achingly heartfelt journey explores life, death, the astonishing wonder of the universe...and the potential for love and hope right next door. *** Review: The themes of death/loss/grief/coping/moving on are not exactly uncommon in YA books, but this book is actually Middle Grade and deals with the above themes in a gentle and mature way while still being accessible to younger readers. Told from Suzy's perspective, we see her cut off contact with people while she struggles to absorb the fact of her friend's death and to find a rational meaning behind it. It's easy to really like Suzy and to relate to her need to find that meaning. Presented in the style of a research report, Suzy (a highly rational person herself) logically forms a hypothesis, does research, gathers data, and comes to a conclusion. But of course, there is nothing rational or logical in death, and this is the thing Suzy must come to terms with. Short chapters and several parts make this a quick, easy read which is often funny and occasionally heart-wrenching. There are certain analogies and explanations of the more subtle aspects of the human condition in this novel which I think, while intelligible to younger readers, will offer a lot to older readers too. Ali Benjamin is clearly a skilled writer, capable of expressing difficult concepts in universally relatable language. Perhaps nothing overly special or original broadly speaking, the nuances of this novel make it worth the read. Rating: 4/5

I'm happy to do it either weekend really.

I read Slade House after seeing it mentioned here. Liked it a lot, didn't love it. Very readable and creative. Didn't like the ending which came out of nowhere, but apparently it doesn't come so much out of nowhere if you've read The Bone Clocks first.

Finished The Thing About Jellyfish. A surprisingly good read. Still have to finish the Walliams one, not sure what's up after that.

Never! I must quantify my appreciation of books!

Olaf is the best. I absolutely adore him. I don't think it's an amazing film, I think it's one of the first Disney films in years that reaches a decent standard.

I'm not enjoying Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams as much anymore. I think this is why I didn't like Roald Dahl either growing up - I don't like silliness in books, even childrens' books. And there's a great deal of disbelief suspension required for this book. It's very well written and there's a lot about it I like, but pretty much every new event in the plot has me going, 'that wouldn't happen. Nobody would do that. That wouldn't work.' I'm most of the way through though so I'll finish it. Also started The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin.

Okay in fairness, that was very good. The only thing I don't like is the indulgence of Clara as a character, as I didn't like her. I would have like to have seen that level of devotion to Amy. But that's just me, I'm not saying that should have happened or would have worked.

I don't know. I felt like Slade House was over-explained, so probably not, but I won't know until I read The Bone Clocks. Apparently one of the characters in The Bone Clocks is the character I hated at the end of Slade House, so maybe I wouldn't feel she was quite so out-of-nowhere if I had read that first! ...The more I google the two books, the more I suspect the answer is 'yes, yes I did.'

*pokes head in door* I feel like there's a story here!

Sorry I'm posting over you haha coz I'm just catching up on some reviews. I look forward to my blog too, I want to do a good job of it this year, need to actually look up some ideas for it! I also realised that my external blog is all done with x/5 ratings, so if I switch to an x/10 system, my external blog will be inconsistent. Might just have to half whatever I give things on my x/10 system.

Slade House by David Mitchell Synopsis: Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents—an odd brother and sister—extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late. . . . *** Review: I own both Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, but I haven't read either because I have always been of the impression that they are quite dense, demanding and meandering books. When I saw a review of this describing it as extremely readable, I decided to use try it as a (hopefully accessible) segue into David's other work. I may have done this slightly out of order, as it turns out that Slade House began life as a short story based upon a section of The Bone Clocks. Anyway, none of the above is actually anything resembling a review. I LOVED this book, though it wasn't quite perfect. Essentially it is a collection of related short stories, concerning the various victims of the haunted house over several decades. Each character is briefly introduced and contextualized before making their way to the house to suffer a variety of creatives fates. The writing is absolutely beautiful, a perfect blend of readable and lyrical. Despite the short time spent with each character, I loved all of them (except the last one), and I loved the whole new spin Mitchell has created here on the classic haunted house story. My two biggest issues with it are exposition and the ending. There's quite a lot of explaining in the story, as well as a full backstory literally revealed for the sake of it over coffee. I don't think that was necessary, and it wasn't interesting enough to hold its own. It does, however, give me hope for reading Mitchell's other books; if they're complex enough to require exposition it would be nice if they have it. The ending - I disliked the final character and the events related to them, as they were not convincing enough to seem anything other than a convenience for completing the story. That said, I would hope my two minor criticisms would not deter anyone who otherwise thinks it sounds like a good read - I did give it 4.5/5 after all. Great read. Rating: 4.5/5

Dangerous Games (short story sequel to Mind Games) by Teri terry Synopsis: Sixteen years after Luna took on the might of PareCo, her daughter Liberty is fighting for her independence, fighting for her freedom, fighting to discover who she really is. Constantly pushing the boundaries of what she can do in the virtual space of the void and still survive in the real world, it is only a matter of time before Liberty goes too far. And when the mysterious Ex offers to tell Liberty all her mother's secrets, it seems too good an opportunity to resist. But how will Liberty know what is real, or who she can trust - especially when it seems that the future of the void, and of the non-virtual world it connects to, may be at risk of destruction? *** Review: Eh. I wanted this to be amazing, and I wanted to love it. Unfortunately, it reads like a tacked-on afterthought that offers explanations inconsistent with the feel and tone of the original book for things I needed no explanations for, as well as a Deux Ex Machina way of providing a happy alternative to the sad ending of the original book. Not entirely sure why I'm even giving it three stars, to be honest. I guess because I did enjoy reading it - as with Mind Games it's extremely creative, original, and well-written. I adored some of the newer concepts in it, like Liberty's abilities with silver and the Void. I was even fairly okay with Liberty's origins, though they are pushing it a little bit. But... this is only a short story. And a short story is not an effective medium for introducing and explaining a massive game-changing element to an entire world and what it consists in. One of my original complaints about Mind Games (which I otherwise absolutely adored) was that there was a little too much packed into one book, and it would have made a great duology. Had the concepts in this novel been greatly expanded on and turned into the second part of a duology along with the excess from the first book, it could have been a really great fantasy/sci-fi blend with transcendental qualities. Perferably without the deus ex happy ending. Alas, that is not to be, and honestly, while I enjoyed aspects of this story, I'm going to go right on pretending it doesn't exist. Rating: 3/5

Thanks Gaia I'm pretty happy with them. Now to catch up on my reviews and start preparing my reading stats for the year, as well as my 2016 reading blog! Almost time to say goodbye to this one I love being a nerdy reader at this time of year hehe, it's so much fun doing all the stats and organisation

I must try catch up this evening!

My 2015 Read-a-thon stats are in my thread now

Read-a-thon stats for 2015! This was my first year joining in Read-a-thons, and I only figured out how it worked in April, so I didn't start until May. I didn't check what fraction of books I finished/started (half, third etc), so I can only note how many full books I read and how many partial. May: 727 pages, 1 read, 1 finished, 1 started July: 1180 pages, 2 read, 1 finished, 1 started September: 663 pages, 2 read, 1 finished December: 725 pages, 3 read, 1 finished, 1 started Total pages: 3295 Total read: 8 full books, 9 partial, span of 17 books. Average pages per read-a-thon: 824 Average books per read-a-thon: 4.25 Now let's see if I can beat the averages next year! I'll definitely beat the total because I plan to take part in more read-a-thons.

I agree about the scale, I think the lowest I've given a book is 2/5, which is 4/10 and really I should be giving some of them 2/10 or 1 out of 5 but I can't bring myself to do it! So I might switch to an out-of-ten scale in 2016, not sure yet. Thank you for my Christmas card! Your package went off yesterday (finally) - we've had a lot of stormy weather so I just didn't get to the post office for ages. I wrote your address on your card before realising it was going into a package anyway, what an eejit Let me know when it arrives!

Haven't seen the last two episodes yet but I've seen the spoilers, and I'm looking forward to finding out on how earth they come about. I also disliked Clara, but thought

I know but I recommended it I loved how dark and off the wall it was. I've been reading a few kids books recently, mostly not very good. The Last Of The Spirits by Chris Priestley was a retelling of A Christmas Carol which was interesting but not particularly compelling. Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate was pretty bad. Now I'm reading Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams, after seeing him on the Late Late Toy Show here talking to kids about his books. Really loving it.

I'm sorry!

Nooooo the ending is brilliant!!

Hello justmeandatea, welcome to the forum I found this place many moons ago following the exact same line of thinking - I loved reading but had no idea who to talk to (or even where to find the best recommendations), and I can promise you this is the place for it! If you read regularly, you should check out our Book Blog section - everyone will be preparing their blogs for 2016 over the next few weeks and you could make your own thread to talk about what you read in 2016.